I am a strong supporter of the EPI and have signed ad. However, I am increasingly disheartened by the lack of focus of the EPI on the issue of full employment. In the election ad, some in the EPI capitulated to the claim that we are so near full employment that there is not much room for a demand side stimulus. While the EPI tried to distance itself from this positon it has done nothing to contradict it. That is, it has yet to mobilize economists around the notion that the unemployment rate should be driven down to the 4-4.5% range. Instead, it has gotten sidetracked into the focus on the balanced budget demand. Even here, EPI accepts a united front with regressive liberals. That is, the ad accepts the notion that it is good to generally balance the budget but disagrees with the method. I believe that the EPI should provide some leadership with a discussion of making a mass demand to lower the unemployment rate to say 4.2% EVEN IF IT MEANS A MODERATE INCREASE IN THE ANNUAL INFLATION RATE. Without leading such a campaign the EPI will at best put a human face on Rockefeller Republicanism which after all is what the Democratic Party has become. Of interest, I just reread a 1965 piece by James Tobin in which he makes essentially the same points that I am making. In that article, he argued that the unemployment rate should be brought down to an AVERAGE of 3.0- 3.5 percent and he was willing to accept the modest increase in inflation rates. Maybe the EPI can have Eisner and others generate an ad that would have this focus -- even a few hundred signatures on this kind of an ad is worth more than the thousands you are getting on the bbamendment ad. Robert Cherry
