and bad deficits. It's pure ECON 101 that you run deficits during crisis periods and run surpluses during economic growth periods. Yes, that's simplistic of course. We haven't run a surplus since the Clinton administration I don't believe. Nevertheless, President Obama's largest deficit spending occurred during one of the most devastating recessions in American history, and went down steadily. President Trump's have come, appropriately, during the COVID crisis, but also prior to the COVID crisis during an economic growth period.

This doesn't address the question of deficit spending generally by all parties because the American people and their representatives aren't mature enough to realize that there is a price to the maintenance of the war machine, to social security and medicare and to infrastructure investment, not to mention tax policy. No one wants to make the case to the public about what shared sacrifices we might need to make to get make this country what we want it to be. By the way, just generally, deficits from infrastructure investment would be an example of good deficits. They pay for themselves.