Thread by @awprokop

So at the heart of the Summers op-ed is the political assumption that if you spend a ton on stimulus now then inevitably deficit mania will kick in and Congress will get cold feet on doing anything more, killing the rest of Biden's agenda.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

In 2009 this sort of is what happened. Progressives often frame the stimulus mistake as going "too small." But at the time there was an assumption in the White House that if they needed more stimulus later, they could go back and get it from Congress. That proved untrue.

But...

Congress is different now. In '09 the constraint was a caucus of deficit-worrying Democrats + Republicans.

There are few D deficit worriers left, and hardly anyone expects GOP support for Biden's agenda. A second bill will be reconciliation again.

Which means the question of whether future big spending is politically feasible depends on Joe Manchin. A few others, too, but if you get him you probably get those others.

Does Larry Summers have insight into how Joe Manchin will be thinking about the deficit months from now?

Of course if there actually are real-world troubling signs of economic "overheating" of the kind Summers worries about, that could well give Manchin and others cold feet on doing anything more.

But as he admits we don't know if there will be such signs.