Robert H. Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell University, makes an important point in his New York Times column, titled “The Payroll Tax Needs a Vacation.” Specifically, Frank argues, we shouldn’t allow the debate over the federal deficit to obscure the problem of getting people back to work.

As a matter of fact, these two problems are really flip sides of the same coin. It is highly unlikely that we will solve the deficit problem if we don’t grow the economy and get people back to work.