Why Are We Unable To Separate Short Term and Moderate Fiscal Policy Response to Crisis?

Dani Rodrik argues that historians will look at our response to economic problems as a failure of political imagination. Our political systems are not designed to insure that fiscal decisions made by the incumbent administration will be followed by subsequent administrations. Consequently, it is difficult to develop short term fiscal responses to recessions in the absence of assurance that medium term policies to maintain a stable debt to GDP ratio will implemented. He proposes a solution to this problem by establishing an independent entity that has the responsibility for maintaining longer term debt stability.