Domestic policy is Johnson’s calling card, and the candidate is well known for his laissez-faire attitude toward regulating guns and pot. The Chicago Tribune singled out for praise Johnson’s sensible approach to the deficit and economic growth. "We wish the two main parties had not run away from today’s centrists,” the editorial’s authors wrote.

But far from “centrist,” the Libertarian candidate’s economic ideas are so radical they make Trump seem downright moderate. He would abolish federal income taxes, replace the current tax code with a more regressive national consumption tax, cut Medicare and Medicaid by 40 percent, push for a constitutional amendment to forbid the U.S. to run deficits even during downturns, ban federal bailouts of states, and seek to eliminate the Federal Reserve.

This is worse than fiscal irresponsibility. These ideas aren't politically or even morally responsible. Taken together, they could trigger a recession by taking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy, handcuff the federal government’s ability to stabilize the private sector, and throw millions of adults off health insurance, creating a needless economic crisis while whistling under the banner of economic freedom and choice. “Johnson is proposing an immediate fiscal tightening of 3 percent of gross domestic product,” the Washington Post’s Matthew O’Brien wrote. Without the Federal Reserve to buttress the downturn, O’Brien projected that the ensuing recession could push unemployment back above 7 percent.

Johnson would say that his policies are necessarily bold to confront the dangers of U.S. debt. But his presidency might author a kind of Greek tragedy in America—the sort where the heroes, acting to prevent a certain calamity, ironically bring about that very catastrophe. To keep the U.S. from becoming a bloated welfare state “just like Europe,” Johnson would pinch the economy in austerity's straitjacket, drive up unemployment, and purposefully withhold any economic stimulus, which would make the U.S., well, just like Europe.

The U.S. is not looking at an imminent debt crisis. Still, the rising cost of health care combined with the aging of the population will require that the U.S. government spend more on Medicare and Social Security than current tax levels can support. Just as there are many diet plans that don’t involve absolute starvation, there are many deficit-reduction strategies that don’t require the U.S. to cut taxes on the rich, raise taxes on the poor, and take away the federal government’s two best weapons during recessions—monetary easing and deficits. A sensible debt-reduction plan might look quite a lot like the opposite: Taxes on the rich might go up a little bit, federal benefits might have to be reduced or means-tested, and technological advancements and insurance-policy changes could slow the growth of health costs.