»So if it were up to me, I’d step a bit more on the fiscal accelerator. But that’s not why I left [the White House]. I left because I was frustrated. Not with what was going on inside the White House, but with what is going on outside.

The national debate over economic policy is way off track and the stakes are as high as can be. In every important area of economic and social policy—health care, fiscal policy (deficits, debt, taxes), public investment, retirement security, climate change, education, job growth, income distribution—there’s so much misinformation, so many false assertions, that it is impossible for anyone paying attention to evaluate the choices with which they’re faced.

Most important, as the 2012 election season gears up, we are poised to have a fundamental debate about the size and role of the federal government. But absent straight talk and plain, understandable facts from both sides of the argument—about the costs and benefits engendered by this choice—it will be impossible for voters to make an informed choice.

Let me be clear about where I stand. I view the conservative agenda right now as trying to implement a large shift in who bears the risk of those events in our personal and economic lives that are inadequately handled by private markets. In my view, to get this wrong means significant disinvestment in public goods from education to infrastructure, diminished health and retirement security, more booms and busts—a move from “we’re in this together” to “you’re on your own.”«