Obama was reserved in response, but Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner interjected that he didn’t think anything of such ambition was possible. “How do we get this done through Congress?” he asked. “What could we actually do that we haven’t done?”
The meeting highlighted what today is the biggest disagreement between some of the world’s top economists and the Obama administration. The economists say the president could have significantly accelerated the slow economic recovery if he had better addressed the overhang of mortgage debt left when housing prices collapsed. Obama’s advisers say that they did all they could on the housing front and that other factors better explain why the recovery has been sluggish.
The question is relevant because although Obama won reelection this month, the vast majority of voters still say the economy is weak and not getting better. Policymakers in Washington are now focused on another type of debt — the public debt all taxpayers owe — but the slow economic recovery, which depresses tax revenue, makes that problem harder to solve.
Nearly 11 million Americans, or more than a fifth of homeowners, are buried in debt, owing more than their properties are worth after piling their life savings into their properties — a persistent and largely unaddressed problem that represents the missing link in what many economists consider the administration’s overall strong response to the recession.
“Housing was the neglected piece. They have the kind of attitude that they don’t believe this is a good value for the money, this is politically unpopular, and there’s not much we can do,” said Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman consulted frequently by the White House. “There were obvious things to do that academics and others started pointing out back in 2008. That could have shortened the recovery time.”
Obama’s economic advisers dispute that notion. Geithner said the administration chose the best options available to deal with the housing crisis.
“We knew the hit to wealth would be damaging. We knew the level of debt had the potential to restrain the strength of recovery,” he said. “The only issue was, what could you do about it? What were the feasible options available? We chose the best of the feasible options.”
Obama’s advisers believe the ultimate pace of recovery is understandable, if disappointing, given the financial crisis and the collapse in housing prices, as well as surprises such as a drought this year, the European debt crisis, rising oil prices and the trade-disrupting Japanese earthquake. They argue that the course they pursued — spending more than $1 trillion on tax cuts and employment programs — helped all Americans and sped up the recovery, and that alternatives that dealt with housing debt directly were never viable.
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