In the spring of 2020 we urgently increased the total federal debt by 13 percent. Watch: if Democrats get more power in Washington anytime soon, there will be a new Republican outbreak of mock fiscal panic and insistence on restraint—hysterical in both senses, overwrought as well as darkly funny. It’s past time to resist that trap, to dial back the excessive liberal aversion to risk, where habitual fear of political counterreaction to transformative new policies and programs prevents them from even having a chance at getting popular and enacted.
