Big stimulus works, but fiscal policy burdened by politics is a problem

For all the pre-pandemic talk about central banks being out of ammunition, ​​​​​​they were able participants in the nascent recovery

If the global financial crisis taught economic policy makers anything, it was go early and go hard. The cost of hesitating proved too great. Now the world’s most powerful central banks have expanded bond purchases to about $17 trillion — equivalent to the gross domestic product of China and the U.K. combined — to keep borrowing costs low and boost Covid-ravaged economies. This helped prevent a health emergency from morphing into a financial meltdown. But with growth reviving and vaccines in the works, officials from Washington to Wellington now face an unexpected consequence: They may have been too successful for