This week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke observed that it is “appropriate” to consider a “significant” stimulus. Of course, the Chairman's comments that Congress “limit longer-term effects on the federal government's structural budget deficit” didn't get the same amount of attention.

Politicians of all stripes have recently been embracing the economic views of John Maynard Keynes, proclaiming that with today's sizable economic challenges, broad government spending is the right way to jumpstart the economy. Budget discipline, many argue, has to be temporarily pushed to the side in favor of deficit spending on infrastructure, jobs programs, and other investments.

Unfortunately, pushing budget discipline to the side is nothing new to policymakers, and in recent years, deficit spending has been the norm. In 2002, Vice President Cheney told then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill that “Deficits don't matter.” Since that time, lawmakers and the administration have led the country into an ocean of red ink. Revenue cuts and massive spending increases became a recipe for record deficits.

Over the past seven years, we've added $4.2 trillion to our debt, bringing it to a whopping $10 trillion. In FY 2008, we paid more than $450 billion in interest alone. As the debt increases, so will our interest payments. Even without stimulus spending, our deficit spending would continue without a major change in course.

And as Dr. Robert F. Wescott, President of Keybridge Research, recently told Congress, “There can be a point where budget deficits are so large that they cause private investors to lose confidence in the country's fiscal management.” That would be the tipping point; if investors lose confidence then the U.S. government is going to have to pay higher interest rates to get people to buy our debt.

So when Congress and the next president consider new major spending, it is more important than ever that they keep in mind that deficits do matter. Whatever stimulus is enacted needs to be targeted and effective, and not simply a regurgitation of political favorites regardless of whether they are appropriate fixes to the current problems.

Congress is talking about everything from extending unemployment insurance and expanding food stamps benefits to a temporary capital gains tax cut. There's also talk about plowing money into infrastructure to generate jobs and providing aid to states in the red. Some of these provisions may be helpful, but only if considered in the context of the specific needs of the current crisis. It is time for Congress to put partisanship aside in favor of hard-nosed, tough decisions that benefit the country.

The argument for deficit spending in times of recession isn't new. Unfortunately, years of deficit spending have given us no fiscal slack to deal with these tough times. Because we re-elected the Republicans and Democrats that led us over this fiscal cliff, politicians have concluded that concerns over the deficit take a back seat to other voter priorities. But deficits do matter, and we hope voters, Congress, and the next President don't forget that.