Even Deficit Hawks Support Big Spending to Fight the Virus Slump
Mankiw, Hubbard, and others say now is not the time to worry about balancing the budget.
Photographer: Stephen Puetzer/Getty Images
In ordinary times, conservative economists say they are worried about big federal budget deficits and rising debt. These are not ordinary times. The U.S. economy is in crisis, with entire sectors virtually shutting down to stave off the spread of the highly contagious virus that causes the lung disease Covid-19.
I emailed several of the best-known conservative academic economists in the U.S. to ask what they think the federal government should do to counteract the economic effects of the fight against Covid-19. Restraining the deficit was nowhere near the top of their list. Here are some of their replies:
Gregory Mankiw of Harvard, who was a chief economic adviser to Republican President George W. Bush and the author of a bestselling introductory economics textbook:
“There are times to worry about increasing government debt. But a crisis like the current pandemic is not one of them.”