I obviously don't agree with all of the policy remedies in this column, but holy cow does David Frum understand the politics of the moment. Here are the relevant parts:

Employment is issue 1 in 2010. The Obama approach to the jobs issue has not delivered the results for which Americans hoped. Confronting that failure, the administration is now proposing still more spending, $50 billion on infrastructure, money that will not begin to flow for years -- and that seems mainly intended to allow Democratic congressmen to brag that they have delivered projects for their districts. The White House is hinting that it may also improve accelerated write-off for business investment: let's hope so.

Republicans should commit to fiscal stimulus through tax relief and (as the economist Milton Friedman would have advised) more monetary stimulus to fight deflation. Measures should include:

(1) Renewal of the Bush tax cuts for another 5 years;

(2) Immediate passage of an 18-month payroll tax holiday and the suggested faster expensing of investment;

(3) Repeal of the tax increases in the Obama health plan;

(4) A commitment by GOP senators to approve to the Federal Reserve Board only appointees committed to a more expansionary monetary policy.

[...]

America's debt problem is huge and vital, but jobs come first. Republicans should avoid the mistake of addressing the government's balance sheet before first repairing the nation's prosperity.

Note what he's doing here. Half of the policies, such as the renewal of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, are standard boilerplate for the GOP. But the payroll tax holiday and the commitment to an expansionary monetary policy in the middle of a horrific recession are things that a Democratic administration should be championing and harping on every day. In the first place, they're good, aggressive policy that would pump more money into the economy. Since workers will have more money in their pockets if they don't have to pay the payroll tax, they will spend more money on consumer goods and less on paying down credit card debts. This will increase aggregate demand for goods and services, thus giving employers more incentive to hire people. And when employers hire people, those folks will have more money in their pockets, thus leading to even higher aggregate demand.

In other words, this is what a Keynesian tax cut would look like -- it gives temporary relief to the people who are most likely to spend it and thus boost aggregate demand. But the Obama administration has decided that this sort of measure is too expensive and that the bond vigilantes will hike yields on ten-year t-bills all the way up to 3% if we take bold action to put people back to work. So instead we get weak half-measures like the relatively teensy amount spent on new infrastructure spending (worthwhile but spread out too far over too many years to make a real dent in unemployment) and a $100 billion business tax credit that is similarly unlikely to boost hiring.

This, then, is the state of our establishment Democratic Party in 2010. David "Axis of Evil" Frum is making them look positively progressive by comparison*. Or even leaving aside the "progressive" and "conservative" labels, Frum at least somewhat understands that people get very unhappy when there's 9.6% unemployment, when there are practically no jobs being created and when roughly one-quarter of all mortgages is underwater. For some reason Obama and the Democratic Party establishment fundamentally do not understand that when people are out of work and in danger of losing their homes, they get angry and are liable to vote for any crazy jackass who isn't in power (see: Angle, Sharon and Miller, Joe).

The good news, if there is any, is that a lot of the Tea Party folks are likely to be lousy congressmen who will become very beatable if (and yes, I mean if) we ever get out of this insane recession. Because let's face it: Once you aren't living in constant fear for your livelihood, you're a lot less liable to vote for the crazy lady who campaigns against masturbation. Funny how that works.

*Now would be as good a time as any to issue a mea culpa to Lambert and the folks at Corrente, who are much smarter than I am: You were right about Obama! I was wrong. I stupidly voted for neo-liberalism in the Democratic primary when what we really needed was populism. The difference is, I think Edwards was the only one who actually might have delivered in that regard. Hillary would have been neo-liberalism with a better health care plan.