Paul Krugman on the US economy

In his speech to the Democratic National Convention Bill Clinton summarized the Republican argument as "We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in." In Cleaning Up the Economy Paul Krugman looks at Clinton's line and asks if the mess is "really getting cleaned up". His conclusion is that, while Obama could have done more on debt relief, the policies he did push through "the auto bailout and the Recovery Act — that made the slump a lot less awful than it might have been. And despite Mitt Romney’s attempt to rewrite history on the bailout, the fact is that Republicans bitterly opposed both measures, as well as everything else the president has proposed." He concludes:

So Bill Clinton basically had it right: For all the pain America has suffered on his watch, Mr. Obama can fairly claim to have helped the country get through a very bad patch, from which it is starting to emerge.

However, that's not the best part about Krugman's article. Before he could critique Clinton's claims Krugman first had to provide background to them. He did this by looking at the three main problems facing the economy when Obama was inaugurated and then explained why the recovery has been so slow. This is where, I think, the article's real value lies. Krugman's explanation is short and easily understood. Recommended reading.