Ezra Klein and Mark Thoma both weigh in on the utterly bizarre claim that the large budget deficits we’re currently running are the result of a loss of self-control — as opposed to the result of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, which has both savaged revenue and required a large rise in safety-net spending. Moreover, as Ezra points out, these deficits actually serve a useful purpose! Without the automatic stabilizers that led to rising deficits as the economy plunged, we might well be living in a full remake of the Great Depression.

Let me add one more item: implicit or explicit in all the nonsense moralizing here is the notion that behind the deficits lies a vast expansion of government spending. And that’s just not true.

Let’s look at the growth of real government spending — all levels, federal, state and local — before and after the crisis. All data are from FRED. I present spending with and without unemployment benefits, to give you the picture once you exclude the biggest piece of safety-net spending:

So even with unemployment benefits included, spending grew no faster after 2007, as deficits soared, than before. Take out UI, and there was a noticeable slowdown, which would be even bigger if we also took out other safety-net programs such as food stamps.

Yes, both before and after government spending rose faster than the economy’s long-term rate of growth, mainly because of health-care costs. But that growth difference is a very small part of the deficit story.

So what we’re basically looking at is a collapse of revenue. That’s a policy disaster, not a moral failure.

Now, if you really want to see a moral failure, look at Mitt Romney’s apparently imminent plan to radically increase long-term deficits by cutting taxes on, well, people like Mitt Romney, while claiming that supply-side magic will pay for it all.