Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes.

My policy is I will help any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat.

It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears.

The FHA's success provides strong evidence that government can and should play a role in the nation's mortgage finance system. It also demonstrates that although government intervention in the economy during the Great Recession was messy, things would have been a lot messier without it.

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

If Mr. Trump gets precisely the policies he says he wants, then the economy will suffer a recession.

Predicting recessions is indeed a dark art, but I think we are several years away from the next one.