The green shoots are barely out of the ground and Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress are already demanding that the administration “do something” to cut the budget gap. We worry that the political drumbeat may be too hard to resist. In 1997, after three years of tepid growth, the Japanese government stopped its stimulus: it raised a consumption tax, ended a temporary income tax cut, increased social security premiums and nipped recovery in the bud.

Japan’s other blunder was its unwillingness to fix its banks. Regulators did not force banks and indebted firms to recognize trillions of yen worth of bad loans. Banks trundled along like zombies, squandering credit to keep insolvent firms on their feet. When the Asian currency crisis hit, many undercapitalized banks toppled over.

The Obama administration has not been quite as forgiving with the banks, but it still has been nowhere near aggressive enough. The regulatory reform meant to curb bankers’ destructive risk-taking is moving at a snail’s pace through Congress. While the Treasury has forced banks to raise capital, many  including some of the largest  remain thinly capitalized and weak.

Banks have been unwilling to sell bad assets and take a loss. They remain stuffed with risky commercial and residential mortgages and consumer debt. Bankers, meanwhile, have made things worse by insisting on paying themselves huge bonuses after profiting so handsomely from the taxpayers’ tolerance and largess.

There are two big problems with that. The bankers’ taste for risk has not been in any way quenched. And the American public is, justifiably, fed up. That means if there is another bank crisis  say when the Federal Reserve takes away the punch bowl of low interest rates  it will be a lot harder to get Congress to approve another bailout, no matter how necessary.