ziggy29
Moderator Emeritus
If we could do this, deficit spending in a recession might be justified. The problem is, what politician (regardless of party) will stand up to all the special interests who want that surplus money?A wisely run government would run surpluses during the boom years so that they could deficit spend in the bad years. We've been deficit spending through the boom years, which has made our situation all the more disasterous.
What you are describing here is actually close to pure (and complete) Keynesianism. Most people simply refer to Keynesianism as "deficit spending" but that's really only half of the picture. The other half -- the half no one has tried -- involves *cutting* spending and debt reduction during the boom years. But again, who's going to get up and say they want to slash government programs (and employment) 10% because the economy is booming? No one will, and they likely never would.