Just now, Barack Obama’s mad obsession with arcane health-insurance puzzles looks beside the point.

I don’t think anyone fully understands yet how much damage was done to the U.S. economy and financial system by the events of September 2008. Whatever one’s belief in the $800 billion Obama-Pelosi-Summers-Romer Keynesian multiplier, it’s reasonable to believe more than rote public spending is needed to restore the American job-creation machine. The public rightly worries that a damaged economy is vulnerable to more blows.

The White House may think it and Democratic incumbents can simply pocket the credit for whatever fly-wheel growth shows up the next six months. It’s more likely the public will mark down a president who appears passive to its most pressing concern. A presidency seen leading a genuine agenda for renewed growth—offering at least some oxygen to the private economy—would be more likely to earn the broad support it simply does not have now for the agenda of its dreams.