Is it 1937?

Finally, the idea that the world's rich countries need to cut spending and raise taxes has a lot of truth to it. The United States, Europe and Japan have all made promises they cannot afford. Eventually, something needs to change.

In an ideal world, countries would pair more short-term spending and tax cuts with long-term spending cuts and tax increases. But not a single big country has figured out, politically, how to do that.

So true.  I, too, would be cautious about allowing the economy to slip.  But is it that we need more stimulus, or is it that the original stimulus wasn't done right?  If the latter, that's a problem if we really do need something more, as there's little hope that they'd get it right the next time.