This would be pretty ok, if true

Matt Yglesias reports that the Obama Administration is considering pushing for a payroll tax cut to address the apparent slowdown in the economy. That's a step in the right direction relative to what seems to be an attitude at both the Fed and the Administration that they've done quite enough to fight the recession thank you very much, and now have to pivot to the "problems" of inflation and government debt. But at this point - almost two years into the recovery with unemployment still at 9.1 percent and the economy slowing down, I think much more drastic measures are in order. How about:

1) A bounty for firms to hire long-term unemployed workers. If a company hires a worker who can document having been on unemployment compensation for 26 weeks or more, and can document that this worker represents a net addition to payrolls, it receives an amount of money representing say half of that worker's compensation paid in monthly installments for the next 12 months.

2) Obama makes a deal with Republicans: present to me your list of the most onerous regulations that are impeding small business hiring and I will offer a temporary waiver. In exchange, Republicans agree to some element of the Democrats' stimulus agenda: more spending on infrastructure, aid to state and local governments, whatever.

3) An open-ended commitment by the Fed to a program of quantitative easing that does not stop until we have solid economic growth and inflation in the three to four percent range. Increasing expectations of inflation can help stimulate the economy by reducing real interest rates (i.e. if a business can borrow at four percent but believes the price of its product is going to rise at four percent, it's borrowing at a zero percent expected real rate of interest - free money!).

4) Restrictions on bank and non-bank lending to hedge funds and other institutions for speculative purposes and a strong swift kick in the backside to banks to get them to make more conventional business, mortgage and personal loans.

5) A bold program to resolve the foreclosure mess. I still don't understand this issue well enough, but I do know that the relentless slump in the housing market is killing the economy. If what is required is for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to buy up every outstanding mortgage under say $500,000 at face value and then work out debt restructuring agreements with the borrowers, then go ahead and do that.

I don't for a minute believe we're going to get that aggressive an array of policies, however. It looks, for reasons that are really unfathomable, as if the Administration is spurred to action only when economic growth threatens to fall close to zero, but is content to see us muddle through at a 2-3 percent growth rate. At that rate we will never, and I mean never, see a complete recovery from this recession.