Good Deficits: Protecting the Public Interest from Deficit Hysteria (Part 1‪)‬

President Obama has come under increasingly fierce criticism for the size of the federal budget deficit, as both Democratic and Republican politicians loudly proclaim that federal spending should be cut. This article explains why such anti-deficit fervor is misguided and simplistic, and why, perhaps counter-intuitively, cutting government spending can hurt the country, rather than help it, in both the short run and the long run. In the short run, cutting deficit spending can be disastrous for the economy, especially if the economy is already in a weakened state (as the U.S. economy has been since 2008). In addition, the federal budget fails to separate spending that provides long-term benefits to the economy--such as spending on education and infrastructure--from spending that provides no long-term benefits. It is, therefore, just as politically expedient to cut valuable spending as it is to cut waste: both types of spending cuts reduce "the deficit." Thus, indiscriminate cuts in government spending will reduce the deficit, but will also harm our long-term prospects.