Does the deficit really matter?

Are lawmakers who portray the deficit and the national debt as apocalyptic threats exaggerating?

Barack Obama
(Image credit: (Alex Wong/Getty Images))

Republicans are obsessed over the wrong deficit, said Tim Koechlin at The Huffington Post. The GOP's "misguided squabble" over spending and the federal budget deficit has distracted us from our real deficit: Jobs. Bringing our economy back to full employment "should be the very top priority of Congress and the White House." Unfortunately, even President Obama has joined the "chorus of deficit hawks" longing for "a 'grand bargain' that would get the debt and the deficit 'under control.'" But in a stagnant economy like ours, cutting spending "is like bloodletting an anemic patient." If we want to reduce the jobs deficit, the government needs to spend more — and wisely, of course. Cutting spending now would "inflict still more unnecessary pain on millions of Americans."

The truth is that "the deficit is on a sustainable path," said Dylan Matthews at the Washington Post. Thanks to the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff deals, "we've enacted about $2.75 trillion in deficit reduction measures" since 2011, when the Republicans took over the leadership of the House. One think tank estimates that we need just another $900 billion in deficit reduction over the next decade to stabilize the national debt in the long term. Lawmakers who portray the deficit as an apocalyptic threat should "stop worrying and start talking about actual problems."

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Sergio Hernandez is business editor of The Week's print edition. He has previously worked for The DailyProPublica, the Village Voice, and Gawker.