Everyone has heard from the Right that government needs to “tighten its belt” and behave like a responsible family in times of economic crisis.  Paul Krugman blows a nice hole in this analogy:

When a family tightens its belt it doesn’t put itself out of a job. When a government tightens its belt in a depressed economy, it puts lots of people out of jobs; and this is a negative even from the government’s own, narrowly fiscal point of view, since a shrinking economy means less revenue.