Goldberg on Deficits

Jonah Goldberg has a decent column today on the subject of deficits. A key passage:

What drives me nuts about all of the talk about deficits is how it makes the deficit seem like the disease rather than the symptom. The disease is a metastasizing federal government, the deficit is little more than a fever.

When I listen to liberals and journalists complain about Bush's truly outrageous runaway spending, they make it sound as if runaway spending would be fine if we had a balanced budget.

Indeed.

Further, I find it rather difficult to take liberal politicians and pundits seriosuly who bemoan the deficit, as I find it extremely difficult to believe that they would be more fiscally responsible than the current bunch is.