As I explained in today's column, Republicans hobbled the Obama economy in the name of fiscal responsibility, which they abandoned as soon as Trump came in. But how big a deal was that? 1/ nytimes.com/2020/02/06/opi…
Well, the Hutchins Center produces regular estimates of the impact of fiscal policy on growth, which shows the turn to austerity under Obama and the reversal under Trump 2/ brookings.edu/interactives/h… 
Contractionary fiscal policy began in 2011I, when Rs took the House. I took the cumulative impact on growth, and the implied effect on the unemployment rate (assuming 1% GDP = 0.5% unemployment, which is standard). Here's what it looks like 3/
Absent R sabotage, we would have been down to 4% unemployment in 2014. Think how different everything would look if we'd done that 4/
