For most voters, the idea of more government borrowing and spending is about as popular as the Zika virus. And while Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agree on almost nothing, mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike often talk about the national debt the way prohibitionists once discussed booze.

But among economists, the outlook is changing. And with interest rates near historical lows and growth stuck in a rut even as the recovery from the Great Recession moves into its eighth year this summer, even some veterans of Washington’s budget wars are challenging the reigning fiscal orthodoxy that perceives the perennial budget gap as something inherently sinful.



“The views of economists about the deficit are shifting,” said Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 to 2015 and now dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard. “If the very low level of interest rates persists for years to come, as many experts and analysts think is likely, that’s a sea change for budget policy.”

More borrowing might actually be healthy, many economists say, at least in the short term, by helping to elevate the economy’s long-depressed growth trajectory.