Daily Inspiration Quote by Doug Elmendorf

Elmendorf’s “Yes” is doing more work than the rest of the sentence. It’s the economist’s version of planting a flag while quietly measuring the wind: a firm affirmation wrapped in the conditional language that defines technocratic honesty. The key phrase isn’t “raising GDP” or “raising employment.” It’s “relative to what would have happened otherwise” - the counterfactual that lets policy analysis exist at all, and the escape hatch critics love to mock as unverifiable.

The intent is defensive clarity. In the post-crisis fight over fiscal stimulus, the loudest attacks weren’t just about numbers; they were about legitimacy. Was the government “saving” jobs, or merely claiming credit for a recovery that would have arrived anyway? Elmendorf answers on the only ground a serious public economist can stand on: not promises, not moral narratives, but comparative scenarios. He’s signaling, “We can’t rerun history, but we can model it, and the models tell a consistent story.”

The subtext is a tightrope walk between persuasion and credibility. He doesn’t claim the stimulus “created” prosperity in some absolute sense. He claims it changed the trajectory - a modest-sounding argument that’s actually politically explosive because it implies responsibility. If policy can bend the curve upward, then withholding policy is also a choice with measurable costs.

Context matters: as CBO director, Elmendorf’s job was to translate uncertainty into usable public facts without sounding like a partisan. The sentence is constructed to survive hostile cross-examination: plain language, empirical framing, and a built-in admission that economics deals in “would have,” not “was.”