One policy change, please.

• Position: A SYMPOSIUM OF VIEWS

TIE asked this question: What if you became President of the United States in January 2013 and could accomplish only one realistic policy change to restore economic growth and employment to historic trend levels? What would that policy change be?

A collection of expert opinions.

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RUDOLPH G. PENNER

Institute Fellow, Urban Institute, and former Director, Congressional Budget Office

Businesses are delaying investment and employment decisions and retarding the recovery because the next few months are filled with unprecedented policy uncertainty. By the end of January we will know whether we have fallen off the so-called fiscal cliff--a precipice that involves the largest tax increase since World War II, severe spending restraint imposed primarily by a mindless across-the-board cut in almost all budget accounts, and a major cut in physician reimbursements for Medicare.

If we do fall off the cliff, the single most important thing that a president can do is to urge a restoration of most of the tax and spending policies of 2012. Otherwise we face a significant recession. If, by Inauguration Day, Congress has already extended most 2012 policies, it will not have ended policy uncertainty. We know that current fiscal policies are not sustainable in the long run, but we do not know what will replace them.

Therefore, it will not be enough to keep most 2012 policies in place. However the extension is accomplished, it must be supplemented with a presidential announcement that on March 1 he will convene a summit of congressional leaders and the chairmen and ranking members of major taxing and spending committees. The summit will not adjourn until there is an agreement to sufficient deficit reduction to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio by 2024.

The approach is similar to that taken with the Andrews Air Force Base summit of 1990. Cynics will note that the policy package agreed to at Andrews was subsequently voted down by Congress. But the meeting provided leaders with enough information to make changes in the package that were eventually adopted. The result was a very significant deficit reduction that contributed to balancing the budget in the late 1990s.

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STUART E. EIZENSTAT

Partner, Covington & Burling, LLP, former Chief White House Domestic Policy Adviser to President Carter, and former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury

The president who takes the oath of office in January will face a daunting challenge: there are no global drivers of world GDP growth. Key emerging countries such as China, India, and Brazil are simultaneously slowing down, the eurozone is in a recession, and the United States suffers subpar growth. The International Monetary Fund has warned of renewed global recession risks after the world has just extracted itself from the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Several steps need to be taken immediately. First, call an immediate G-20 meeting in the president's first weeks in office to develop a consensus for synchronized action, similar to the 2009 G-20 summit, in which joint action prevented a global depression.

Second, reinvigorate global trade talks, not by trying to resuscitate the dormant Doha Round, but by announcing the start of negotiations for a U.S.-EU Free Trade Agreement to create a tariff-free, barrier-free trans-Atlantic marketplace, and then open the agreement to any countries that wish to take on the comprehensive obligations, and by rapidly completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

But the single most important action is for the president to fashion a bipartisan Grand Bargain with the congressional leadership that accomplishes the following:

* Avoids the "fiscal cliff' facing the United States at the end of 2012 with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and the automatic sequestration of over $I trillion in spending, which if not averted would shut down the nascent recovery of the United States, the world's largest economy;

* Extends the debt limit, without the cataclysmic battle that almost brought the United States to its knees in 2011;

* Sets the framework for a genuine $4 trillion to $6 trillion ten-year deficit reduction package, bringing our total federal debt to a manageable level of 60 percent of GDE This can be accomplished by a tax reform package that lowers individual and corporate rates by eliminating loopholes and subsidies while increasing revenues; encourages American corporations to bring home their foreign profits; and reforms our entitlement programs serving our increasingly aging society, especially Medicare, in order to restrain the soaring costs of health care.

This is not an impossible task. President Obama and House Speaker Boehner came close to an agreement. Even though actual legislation would take all of 2013 to enact, an agreed framework would provide greater certainty for individuals and corporations (who have some $2 trillion on their books waiting to be invested); lift the stock market; and increase consumer confidence that our government is capable of facing its greatest economic challenges.

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MOHAMED A. EL-ERIAN

CEO and Co-CIO, PIMCO

Virtually every challenge the United States faces, from restoring medium-term fiscal sustainability to maintaining global leadership, is linked to the need for more robust and inclusive economic growth.

With the country having overdosed for almost a decade on leverage and credit entitlement, this will not materialize easily. It requires a multi-year and multi-faceted pivot in the growth model--away from finance dependency and back to greater reliance on competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and great social responsibility.

This is possible, but it requires steadfast policy and political commitment. And popular buy-in will not be forthcoming if Washington fails to more clearly articulate and implement a more comprehensive and effective economic approach.

By appointing a visibly accountable economic policy czar, the president can rely more on structure to do some of the heavy lifting. This person would pursue daily the implementation of the president's medium-term economic vision, with the power to overcome departmental turf wars in favor of simultaneous pursuit of coordinated reforms.

A unified vision out of this part of Washington can also serve to counter congressional dysfunctionality. In addition to being a better source for common analysis, it would better highlight policy interlinkages--including the manner in which political dysfunction amplifies economic shortfalls.

Yes, America has a activist Federal Reserve whose chairman, Ben Bernanke, is willing to wander further into unfamiliar territory to stop low growth (and high joblessness) from being embedded in the structure of the economy. But this bold experimentation will disappoint if unaccompanied by simultaneous reforms in housing, public finances, credit intermediation, infrastructure, education, and the functioning of the labor market.

It is a rare situation in Washington where one plus one equals more than two. This is one of them, and it comes with enormous payoffs for both current and future generations.

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BRUCE R. BARTLETT

Author of The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform--Why We Need It and What It Will Take (Simon & Schuster 2012)

Make Paul Krugman secretary of the Treasury. Do what Krugman suggests.

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JARED BERNSTEIN

Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

I'd recommend using the fiscal cliff crisis as an opportunity to get on a stable fiscal path while offsetting its contractionary impact through aggressive temporary stimulus.

Going over the fiscal cliff is rightly viewed as a disaster because this economy is still too weak to absorb more than $500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts without heading back into recession. On the other hand, going over the cliff puts the budget on a stable path, something most economists agree is essential for future growth and investment.

Is there a way to both get on the better budget path but avoid a double dip?

In fact, there is, and it's simple: offset the cliff-induced fiscal contraction with a large, temporary stimulus.

Since taxes reset to the rates that prevailed in the Clinton years--very strong years for...