Krugman: Obama, Geithner Need to Do More to Boost Economy

March 25, 2009— -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said President Obama needs to lift the confidence of the American people and "to prepare public opinion for the really bold policies that he keeps on promising but not delivering."

In an interview with ABC News, Krugman said the administration needs to stop making "half-measures" and should tackle the recession head-on.

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As for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he said Geithner "is conditioned by his Wall Street friends" to look at the economy from a certain perspective.

"For people who felt that Obama was going to bring change, a real difference, it somehow feels quite a lot as if we've got the same old gang still making the policy decisions, despite how discredited they are in the eyes of the public," said Krugman, who is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, a columnist for the New York Times and an ABC News consultant.

This week, the Obama administration unveiled a plan -- through a private-public partnership -- to buy up to $1 trillion worth of bad mortgages and other so-called toxic assets. Krugman has been critical of the plan, saying it doesn't do enough and places too much risk on the taxpayers.

"We're going to create very sweet deals for people who will buy this stuff off the banks and we're going to hope that just by creating this market, we make the banks' problems go away," he told ABC News. "It's just very hard to believe that that's all right. It's quite likely to cost taxpayers $100 [billion], $200 billion in losses by the time it's all said and done without actually reconciling the problems of the banks."

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Last night, Obama once again took his message directly to the American people. During his second primetime press conference, Obama recapped the steps his administration has taken on the economy which he believes have started to show "signs of progress."

But Obama said that the other governments are also going to have to steps to end the recession.

"What I've suggested is -- is that all of us are going to have to take steps in order to lift the economy," the president said. "We don't want a situation in which some countries are making extraordinary efforts and other countries aren't, with the hope that somehow the countries that are making those important steps lift everybody up. And so somebody's got to take leadership."