It’s truly amazing, and depressing, how completely deficit-phobia has swept the field in Washington. The economy remains in deeply dire straits: here’s long-term unemployment:

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Yet the respectable thing, all of a sudden, is to claim that we can’t possibly afford to spend any more money on job creation.

History says differently. Here’s a comparison of debt/GDP levels, actual levels for several countries (OECD for Belgium, IMF for the rest), and projected levels (from the IMF) for the United States. (Note that these are for general government, i.e., including state and local, so they’re higher than the numbers you usually read).

OECD, IMF

Yes, we’re going fairly deep into debt. No, it’s not unprecedented. Other advanced countries have been substantially deeper in debt without either defaulting or having runaway inflation — and some of those countries have historically had weak governments (Belgium because of the linguistic divide, and Italy because it’s Italy).

I’d be a little more forgiving of the nonsense if all the people screaming about the deficit were sincere. And some are. But many, if not most, are perfectly happy to incur huge unfunded liabilities for the wars they want to fight, and/or to eliminate inheritance taxes for the heirs of multimillionaires. It’s only deficits incurred to help working Americans that get them all moralistic.

Anyway, the point is that the economy desperately needs more help — and yes, we can afford to provide it.