Throughout this painfully prolonged economic recovery, economic developments as they are reported have often been confusing. They seem to send mixed messages about the best courses of action for fiscal policy.

Sometimes we are told that more personal spending (consumption) would be good, and sometimes we are told we need to save more. Sometimes we are told that we need to reduce the government budget deficit, and sometimes we are told that continued deficit spending is needed to avoid a double-dip recession.

So what should we be doing with fiscal policy right now -- consolidating or stimulating?

The most recent economic news is that the economy’s overall growth rate has slowed and is falling short of expectations (2.2 percent annual growth rate of GDP for first quarter of 2012 compared with 3 percent in the prior quarter and 2.5 percent expected). Personal spending has slowed as well (0.3 percent monthly growth in March, down from 0.9 percent the prior month and below the 0.5 percent expected). Job gains have also weakened and are not keeping pace with the natural growth in the working-age population.

This news suggests that more private consumption spending, encouraged by continued stimulative, deficit-financed government spending and tax cuts, is needed to further expand...

In his Fiscal Year 2013 budget, President Obama proposes an array of tax proposals. Some of his suggestions are new and would move the country’s unfair, inefficient and overly complex tax system in a positive direction. But some of the most costly proposals are the ones we’ve seen many times before. Four points stand out in the tax proposals in the Obama budget:

(1)    The budget raises revenues only relative to the administration's policy-extended baseline and not relative to current law.

Under the Obama budget, revenues would rise from their current 15-16 percent of GDP to 19 percent by 2015, and to just over 20 percent by 2022. But under current law, all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year -- so that revenues would exceed 20 percent of GDP by 2015, and 21 percent by 2022. Thus, relative to current law, the president is proposing a net reduction in taxes. Compared with the CBO's projections of the cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts (and the “adjusted baseline” the administration prefers to start with), however, the president's proposals raise revenue. That’s because Obama proposes to let the high-income Bush tax cuts expire and to add some other tax increases on...

The current debate over extending the payroll tax cut well demonstrates that policymakers often mean different things when referring to policies that “help” or “expand” the economy. I often hear the words “stimulus” and “growth” used interchangeably, but when economists use them, we typically are making a distinction between different economic goals that apply to different circumstances.

“Stimulus” usually refers to short-term policies to increase demand for goods and services in an economy  operating at less-than-full capacity -- i.e., an economy with high unemployment. In such a recessionary economy, the problem is not a lack of productive resources (capital and labor), but a lack of demand for the goods and services that those resources produce. Under such conditions, public sector deficits -- whether through tax cuts or direct spending -- can be an effective way to increase demand (consumption) and the level of economic activity.

“Growth” usually refers to the long-term expansion of the “supply side” of the economy -- that is, the supply of capital and labor. When the economy is at “full employment,” the binding constraint on it is not the demand for goods and services, but the supply of inputs to production. Fiscal policies that are good at growing the economy over the longer term are therefore those...

The “no new taxes” pledge taken by Republicans in Congress has been a huge obstacle to achieving bipartisan agreement on a comprehensive deficit reduction plan. Many Republicans interpret the pledge as ruling out revenue increases of any kind, even those that close narrow loopholes and special interest deductions. The devotion seems to extend to a “grand bargain” for deficit reduction that would actually enact future cuts in tax rates, but pay for some of the revenue loss from those cuts by limiting deductions and loopholes.

However, it is encouraging that some of the newly appointed Republican members of the debt limit deal’s super committee have already indicated a refreshing openness to considering this approach. Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) recently told a group of constituents that “tax reform is long overdue” and that he is “not afraid of looking at tax loopholes” in finding common ground on deficit reduction. And, Congressman Dave Camp -- a Republican super committee member from Michigan who also chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee -- when questioned about tax increases has said that “nothing is...