The debates over public employee pension benefits in Wisconsin and high-speed rail are, at heart, the same question: what to do about growing government debt? There seem to be four basic views.
On the Democratic side are the Krugmanites, who think we need to stop worrying about deficits and spend, Spend, SPEND our way out of the recession. While the 2009 stimulus bill preserved some government jobs, it did little to stimulate the rest of the economy, and Megan McArdle reasonably asks if, possibly, Keynesian economics, even if valid in theory, is just not practical because no country can afford the prescription.
