I'd just love to send a huge FU to all those who turned a blind eye (or cheered) as Shrub turned a record surplus into record deficits.

The real issue here is the expense of the Great American Hegemony Project, which may not be permissibly discussed by anyone in the traditional media, and people who would speak of this are not permitted a forum, pretty much anywhere.

The prudent course for the government is to increase spending and/or lower taxes during bad times, and decrease spending and/or raise taxes during good times. Unfortunately, starting with Reagan, the latter has become politically infeasible (not if politicians want to get re-elected).

Well, maybe WE can point out that it makes no sense, but the Obama campaign most definitely cannot.

First, it's counterintuitive. If you know the economic history of the Depression, or you recognize the name Keynes, then you might understand the logic of deficit spending during economic recession, but a lot of people don't have that background, and even those that did at the time of the Depression went with Hooverism anyway. The last two weeks of a presidential campaign are not the time to try to educate swing voters in historical macroeconomics.

And second, it would play right into the Republicans' "tax-and-spend" and "redistribute your wealth" attacks. The fact that it would be beneficial for everyone (much like, say, giving a trillion dollars to Wall Street) would get lost in the noise.

Right now, I think the only people who should be getting hammered with this are the MSM, just so they don't start braying about balanced budgets as soon as Obama is inaugurated.

To be fair to McCain here, it should be noted that he is a Republican and thus can be expected to do exactly the opposite of what he promises.

Remember when George the Lesser was against nation building?

Even the Obama campaign seems reluctant to note that McCain has his economics backwards, probably out of fear that the media's conventional wisdom -- that it's better to cut spending and worry about debt when the economy is falling apart -- is widely accepted by voters

This is exactly right.
We are a nation living on borrowed fantasies about borrowing. With just days to go, it would be fatal for Barack to attempt to explain this. Best to steer clear and hope someone else points out that McCain's idea is akin to sending a legless man to a square dance...

This is the perfect opportunity to launch an Apollo-like program to develop alternative energy and to combat global warming.

But I'm betting we do the exact opposite: put Obama's far lesser and inadequate program on the shelf.

If he wins.

Bleh is basically right. There isn't a time to teach Keynesian economics -- or even remind people that, before the "Reagan Counter-Revolution" even Nixon said "we are all Keynesians now."

In fact, FDR used Hoover's failure to balance the budget against him in 1932, one of the bigger ironies in American politics.

Of course, Obama will have to raise taxes and raise the deficit, and hopefully he won't be too anxious to create a 'simpler' tax code, since many people need the deductions in there for charitable giving and other purposes -- and the charities and educational and artistic endeavors they support (museums, libraries) are important to the nation as a whole and to his ideas on education.

Who would ever argue that it's always a mistake for businesses to borrow money? And we actually encourage people to borrow money to buy houses, becausee it's a good investment for the future. And why is it that Washington pretends that individuals are expected to live within their budget, when we KNOW that most Americans are heavy in debt?

The truth is that borrowing money for future investments can be a GREAT strategy, as long as there is strategy to it. If it's simply about borrowing money to toss into the coffers of Republican donors, that's obviously a mistake. But if the money is well spent, it's the smartest thing we can do.

I don't take a back seat to anybody when it comes to my support for Democrats and liberal thinking, but I must conclude that in addition to this being the wrong time to slash the Federal budget, it is probably the wrong time to raise taxes on anybody. Obama should spend money on clean energy, and infrastructure. Once the current recession passes, then I have no problem lowering middle class taxes and raising taxes on the elite. I won't fight too hard if he wants to lower middle class taxes now.

We have to jump start the economy. We also have to stop being a consumption society and start being a production society again. We have to develop an economy and a society that is sustainable over the long run. This is a time when wisdom should trump ideology.

There may be another reason Obama doesn't want to confront conventional ignorance at this point, which is his exhortation to tighten our belts in response to having lived beyond our means in recent years. If he's asking us to tighten our belts it may look strange to ask the government to loosen its.

Once the current recession passes, then I have no problem lowering middle class taxes and raising taxes on the elite.

But Ron, what sense does that make? The whole reason they'd be taxed a bunch is because they made so much money. It's not as if these are businss owners who are struggling to meet payroll or cover expenses. These are the people who are rolling in the dough even in bad times. Otherwise, we wouldn't be taxing them so much.

And raising their tax rate a few points isn't going to cause them to stop investing or change their plans significantly. If anything, it'll make them need to do more, in order to compensate for the amount they're losing in extra taxes. Besides, I don't see how ideology plays into this at all. This is an economic argument, not one of stubborn liberalism. Please refrain from insulting us in this way. You can pretend that only you know the wise policies, but I happen to see this as a difference in opinion.

The NY Times reports this morning that Ben Bernanke also supports a fiscal stimulus (in support of Obama's statements and in opposition to McCain's) to help pull us out of our recession. Well done.

I'm as big a deficit hawk as they come (street cred...I'm one of the Perot 19), but we also have to set priorities. A stimulus is a short-term necessity and balancing the budget (and paying down the debt) is a long-term must.

I love how politicians talk about how most Americans have to live within a budget. Are these the same Americans who are up to their eyeballs in debt? Who are maxed out on credit cards? Who have no savings?