Burman, a Treasury tax official during the Clinton administration, cautioned the Obama administration against using the stimulus as apretext to make either middle-class tax cuts or its proposed new refundable tax credits permanent.
Paradoxically, the economic crisis has been a blessing of sorts, providing Chuan with the pretext to make some fast, tough decisions -- such as closing down 56 of 58 suspended finance companies -- which under normal circumstances would have been difficult to do.
The broader charge, which was made last weekend in graphic terms by a vengeful Clare Short (the recently departed international development secretary), was one of the most serious it is possible to make: that the prime minister had knowingly led his country to war on a false pretext.