Tax and spending rates should be set to balance the budget if everyone is working. No one has challenged the elementary logic of this approach. But the moralism of balanced-budget proponents has taken us back to the mental universe of the Hoover days. Deficits were then seen as inherently sinful. The people pushing balanced-budget amendments see deficits as sinful now.
Murder is a sin.
Deficits are an aspect of public life that can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances. Let's be realistic about this. The federal deficit was a serious problem when it was rising as a share of the national economy, as it did throughout the 1980s. Then it was a problem because it suggested a fundamental mismatch between what we wanted the government to do and what we were willing to pay for. What we do not have is a runaway deficit problem right now.