Tax reform has not only trumped action on the federal deficit and debt, it now even has former fiscal hawks such as Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney claiming “we need new deficits.” It’s quite an intellectual about-face. It’s one thing to make a short-term political judgement about legislative priorities. It’s another to adopt left-wing arguments about the necessity of deficit spending. The case for sound public finances and limited government is invariably lost along the way.

The problem, of course, is not just that Mr. Mulvaney’s formulation is inconsistent, it’s also wrong. It wrongly assumes that all current spending is productive and efficient and that reducing the deficit will necessarily harm the economy.