The economic recovery, to the extent there’s been one, has stalled. Unemployment remains stubbornly above 9 percent and may go higher. The housing crisis endures. What is President Obama’s remedy? More jobless benefits, more money for governors to pay Medicaid bills, more funds for teachers and state and local government jobs. In other words, more of the same.

What ever happened to “bold, persistent experimentation”? That was President Franklin Roosevelt’s notion of how to cope with the Depression, and Obama is a great admirer of FDR. Yet he’s barely experimented at all. Instead he’s offering more of what has been tried and failed to deliver a healthy economy.