Bruce Bartlett Utters the R-word

Via CalculatedRisk comes the latest from Bruce Bartlett. Bruce is not predicting a recession but he is concerned that our monetary policy is becoming too tight. While I agree with his concern, I don’t agree with Bruce’s analogy to the FED tightening during 1999-2000 for two reasons. One is simply that labor markets were tight five years ago and they are not currently. The second reason goes to the discussion at the end of Bruce’s op-ed – that being the “twin deficits” issue. The better analogy would be to compare the current situation to that during 1981 when labor markets were not tight but the FED was concerned with excessive long-term fiscal stimulus.