What Is There About "Balance" That Republicans Don't Understand?

From "Crooked Timber:"

Contrary to the beliefs of nearly all anti-Keynesians—and, regrettably, some Keynesians, too—Keynesianism demands more, not less, fiscal rectitude in normal times than does the orthodox theory of balanced budgets that underpins the EU. John Maynard Keynes argued that surpluses should be accumulated during good years so that they could be spent to stimulate demand during bad ones.

While the Crooked Timber essay is about the EU, the same principles apply to the US. When Bush II and Greenspan frittered away the surplus built up during the Clinton Years through tax cuts, they set the stage for the deficits we are experiencing now. The parable of the grasshopper and the ant is true. The Republicans are super-grasshoppers--they want to spend the surplus and then when times get hard, they want to raid the ants to give the grasshoppers even more.