Did Obama Just Renounce Pay-Go?

Matt Stoller thinks he did so in this excerpt:

Now, what is true is that Senator McCain and I have a difference in terms of the need to invest in America and the American people. I mentioned health care earlier.

If we make investments now so that people have coverage, that we are preventing diseases, that will save on Medicare and Medicaid in the future.

If we invest in a serious energy policy, that will save in the amount of money we’re borrowing from China to send to Saudi Arabia.

If we invest now in our young people and their ability to go to college, that will allow them to drive this economy into the 21st century.

But what is absolutely true is that, once we get through this economic crisis and some of the specific proposals to get us out of this slump, that we’re not going to be able to go back to our profligate ways.

Seems like a declaration of a principle that it’s ok to spend money without countervailing cuts or taxes as long as that money is an investment.  That’s a partial renunciation of pay-go.  I’d also say that relief spending like welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefit extensions should be exempted from pay-go as well, at least until after the crisis.  Of course, I think the US has more severe problems than Obama does.  Nonetheless, this is good to hear, and Obama deserves praise for it.

The job now is to make sure that he doesn’t change his mind.

Related posts:

1. WaPo’s Katharine Weymouth STILL Doesn’t Renounce Pay2Play
2. Obama Denies Insurance Mandate Taxes Middle Class, Diminishes Public Option
3. More Leaks That Obama Will Turn Deficit Hawk in 2010
4. Is Obama the New, Democratic Version of President Herbert Hoover?
5. The California Territory