Shields and Brooks Mull Economic Woes, Obama’s Plans

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• JIM LEHRER:

  Finally tonight, the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

  David, there was much discussion in the first conversation that Jeff had with those four folks about the issue of trust — that is, the lack of is now driving a lot of the public thoughts about what's happening, not only in the governmental level, but all through this entire economic situation. Do you agree with that?

  DAVID BROOKS, columnist, New York Times: Yes, I do. We call it an economic crisis, but it's a psychological crisis. People don't have trust in the banks; the banks don't have trust in each other. But primarily people don't have trust in the future. And if you don't have trust in the future, why should you invest? Why should you spend?

  And the problem is there are very few people — maybe Dan Ariely was on the segment as one of those few people — who understands how to marry economics and psychology. So we're pulling a lot of economic levers, but if you don't have any psychological trust, people will not spend, they will not invest. You're just pushing on a string.

  And so how you deal with that is really the tough political question. And so one of the things we don't know, for example, is, we're spending trillions of dollars trying to get the economy out of this mess. But when the president is so downbeat, how much does that just scare people and counteract the spending? That we just don't know.

• JIM LEHRER:

  And Bill Clinton, former President Clinton, we had it in the news summary, said on ABC that President Obama — he essentially said President Obama needs to be more optimistic, he's too downbeat, has been too — has told the truth, but it's not working. What do you think?

  MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: Well, President Clinton did, as well, salute him for not happy talk and just saying, "Everything is OK," by any means. And if the president did that, there would be people seriously questioning his sanity and rationality.

  I mean, I think you have to acknowledge, because people confront it in their daily lives, just how serious and grave the situation is. And I…

• JIM LEHRER:

  That's a hard line to walk, though, is it not?

• MARK SHIELDS:

  It is a hard line to walk. And I think — but I think President Clinton was on to something in this sense, Jim. If you think about Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, even Ronald Reagan, there was about them a contagious optimism, even, in many cases, in the darkest of hours.

  And confidence is the child of optimism. Americans are, by actual measurement, have been, the most optimistic people on the face of the planet.

  This didn't just happen. I mean, all throughout 2008, three out of four Americans believed that their children's future lives would not be as bright as their own had been. That was a sea change in American attitudes. So the president is dealing with that.

  But I do agree that there has to be a sense that, look, we are — Americans rebuilt a war-devastated Europe. Americans rebuilt a devastated Japan. We can do it.

  I mean, it required all of us. It's going to require every shoulder to the wheel, but we can do it. It's a serious, tough mission we're on, and I think he has to communicate that.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Yes, I'm sort of torn. I am completely seized with the idea that the economy is in terrible shape and the government has to take dramatic action, but does the government have the carrying capacity to actually know how to fix the economy?

  I'm totally not convinced the government knows how to do that. But Larry Summers is very smart. Peter Orszag, the budget director, is very smart. Tim Geithner is very smart. But do 10 guys sitting around the White House — and, believe me, they're barely staffed over there — do they know how to build, first, a banking plan, then a housing plan, then an auto bailout, soon a health care plan, next week an energy plan?

  Do all those guys sitting around know how to create these plans? Can they rationally and technocratically plan those things and actually get us out of this mess? That's the central tension, the need for some sort of salvation, but skepticism — and I would say proper skepticism — that you could plan that kind of salvation from the center.