WE ARE IN the most anemic recovery in modern history. The president is talking about boosting the economy and rebuilding the middle class, but Washington isn’t doing squat.

In fact, apart from the Fed — which continues to hold down interest rates in the quixotic hope that banks will begin lending again to average people — the government is heading in exactly the wrong direction: raising taxes on the middle class and cutting public spending. It’s called austerity economics.

Washington is still