Deficits


Articles from Dollars & Sense:

Note: Not all articles are available online.
Order back issues here.
Subscribe to the print edition.
Donate to support our work.


  • Revenue Deficit thumb

    What Runaway Spending?

    By Gerald Friedman | March/April 2013

    Federal spending as a share of GDP has declined sharply. The real cause of the deficit is declining revenue due to tax cuts and recession. Read more »



  • Bogeyman

    Beyond Deficit Scare-Mongering

    By Ellen Frank | March/April 2013

    From the fiscal cliff to the sequester to the debt-ceiling, conservatives’ real aim in their fiscal brinkmanship is to gut Social Security and Medicare. Read more »



  • Fiscal cliff thumb

    Don’t Drive Off the Fiscal Cliff

    By Heidi Garrett-Peltier | September/ October 2012

    The U.S. economy is set to go off the so-called “fiscal cliff” at midnight on December 31, 2012. What would go over the cliff is our hope of economic recovery. Read more »



  • thumb

    Why the United States Is Not Greece

    By John Miller and Katherine Sciacchitano | January/February 2012

    Even for those who understand that cutting deficits right now will only weaken a still-fragile recovery, and that weakening the recovery will only increase deficits, getting past the argument that “a eurozone crisis is on its way” is no easy task. Here is a self-defense lesson. Read more »


  • thumb

    The People’s Budget

    By John Miller | September/October 2011

    A plan to get deficit-reduction off our backs. Read more »




  • Dr. Dollar

    Why Do They Oppose More Stimulus?

    By Arthur MacEwan | January/February 2011

    Dear Dr. Dollar: Why are conservatives, especially wealthy conservatives, against stimulating the economy through deficit spending? Don’t businesses’ profits and the incomes of the wealthy depend on economic growth? Read more »



  • Up Against the Wall Street Journal

    That Hurt! Let’s Do It Again.

    By John Miller | November/December 2010

    Responding to the Journal’s nostalgia for the Reagan tax-cuts. Read more »




  • Wolff thumb

    Deficits: Real Issue, Phony Debates

    By Rick Wolff | November/December 2010

    What’s at stake on either side of the class divide. Read more »




  • Sciacchitano thumb

    W(h)ither the Dollar?

    By Katherine Sciacchitano | May/June 2010

    The United States has recently faced a vacillating dollar, calls to replace it as the global reserve currency, and calls for less spending and more saving in the United States. This all comes at an awkward time given the level of public outlays required to deal with the crisis and the need to attract capital to pay for them. Read more »


  • Wolfson thumb

    Myths of the Deficit

    By Marty Wolfson | March/April 2010

    Why do people think that it is more important for the government to reduce the deficit now, rather than to spend money to create jobs? Read more »



  • Donut thumb

    Church of Fiscal Conservatism

    By Barry Deutsch | March/April 2010

    Gospel of the Lord of the Deficit, a comic. See more »




  • FDR

    Economic Rights, Then and Now

    By Susan Feiner | Web-Only | January/February 2010

    What is the state of the economic rights that FDR unveiled in his “Second Bill of Rights” 66 years ago? Read more »



  • Dr. Dollar

    Empire and Entitlements

    By Arthur MacEwan | January/February 2010

    Dear Dr. Dollar: In his book Colossus (2004), Niall Ferguson argues that a major problem with Social Security and Medicare is their underfunded liabilities-to the tune of $45 trillion. Can you comment on this claim? Read more »


  • thumb

    State Budget Blues

    By Marianne Hill | November/December 2009

    States are slashing budgets to close gaps that are averaging a jaw-dropping 24% this year. Read more »


    The Economic Crisis in the States

    By Gerald Friedman | November/December 2009

    Two intrinsic features of the U.S. system of government come together to threaten a social disaster. Read more »



  • Wall Street thumb

    How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit

    By John Miller | November/December 2009

    You would have thought the budget deficit had morphed into Dr. Strangelove’s doomsday machine from the howling that followed the publication of Congressional Budget Office projections. Read more »



  • Keynes article series thumb

    Fiscal Policy and “Crowding Out”

    By Alejandro Reuss | May/June 2009

    Conservative economists argue that the massive government spending required for fiscal stimulus “crowds out” private spending. What was Keynes’ response? Read more »



  • Dr. Dollar

    Why are things getting worse?

    By Arthur MacEwan | March/April 2009

    Dear Dr. Dollar: I learned in my economics classes that in a market economy, problems tend to be self-correcting. So why don’t we see this kind of self-correction now? Read more »



  • Dr. Dollar

    War Spending, Deficits, and Economic Stimulus

    By Arthur MacEwan | March/April 2008

    Dear Dr. Dollar: Doesn’t all the war spending stimulate the economy? And shouldn’t the Bush tax cuts do the same? So why are we falling into recession? Read more »



    Earlier articles from Dollars & Sense:


    Subscribe to the print edition.
    Donate to support our work.

  • Dollar Anxiety

    By John Miller | Jan/Feb 2005

    Global economic and military muscle allows the United States to be a debtor nation without paying the consequences. But will it last? Read more »

  • State Budgets in Crisis

    By Ben Boothby | May/June 2003

    How states are coping with the worst budget deficits since the Great Depression. Read more »

  • Balancing the Budgets: Who Will Pay?

    By Chuck Collins | Mar/Apr 2002

    How can states solve their fiscal dilemmas? By shifting the tax burden onto the well-to-do. Read more »