With the same insight, depth, and incisiveness we came to expect from The New York Times under his editorship, Bill Keller, now a columnist for the paper, recently applied his analytical powers to what he (or his headline writer) called “The Politics of Economics in the Age of Shouting.” Becomingly, he began by describing the humility he feels at a wonderful institution like The New York Times, surrounded as he is by “a legion of Times reporters, editors, and columnists who know more than I will ever know about business and economics. (Look! Right over there: a Nobel-prizewinning economist!).” He didn’t need to mention that this coyly alluded-to cynosure of the editorial pages was Professor Paul Krugman—presumably one of those “few economists respected for the integrity of their science and their patience with economic illiterates” to whom Keller had “reached out” in seeking to tutor himself in the dismal science.

Nor was this educational process without result. The good news he had to impart to his less fortunate readers was his discovery that “there really is a textbook way to fix our current mess.”

Short-term stimulus works to help an economy recover from a recession. Some kinds of stimulus pay off more quickly than others. Once the economic heart is pumping again, we need to get our deficits under control. The way to do that is a balance of spending cuts, increased tax revenues, and entitlement reforms. There is room to argue about the proportions