Fiscal stimulus was the economic tool, so long disparaged by the policymaking community, that came into its own during the economic crisis, playing its part alongside monetary easing and bank bail-outs in warding off a depression.
But the result of fiscal stimulus in almost every Group of 20 economy has been the rise of deficits to levels never seen in peacetime, debt so high there is not the ammunition to fight another economic war and a bill to clean up the mess that will be felt by taxpayers for a generation to come.
