It's time for a fiscal commission

A boring old idea that deserves a comeback

As I’ve noted more than once since inflation reared its head and have been reiterating since we tamed it with high interest rates, the time is right to reanimate the deficit hawk consensus I spent years battling during Barack Obama’s presidency. I feel like too many people have been “consistent” on this issue rather than responsive to the changing conditions. But now is the time for all good Keynesians to look at the situation at hand and say that it’s time to reduce government borrowing expeditiously, which almost certainly means on a bipartisan basis, which means being open-minded about what specific measures are adopted.

Back on December 29, 2011, Paul Krugman wrote a piece headlined “Keynes Was Right,” and it had this lead:

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadil…