Actually this is not quite the Keynesian philosophy. Keynes supported government spending to aid a weak economy, (This is what you call higher deficits) In Keynes concept, the government would “bank” tax revenue in good years and then spend this bank when necessary, and this would not affect the deficit — but the government never gets this right because when they have a banner year they spend more.
Keynes was for capitalism but thought that the government intervention from time to time would make things better than the free market — which does make mistakes sometimes. It turns out that Keynesian economists also make mistakes and do so at a higher rate (IMO) than the free market ever would. This is because the government cannot do anything efficiently and politicians are naturally greedy and corruptible.
Anyway, Trump wants to cut taxes and let the economy grow and maybe build more deficit or maybe not depending on how well the economy grows. I happen to support him with this idea, we are taxed too much (as Bill C admitted) and we should retire the deficit with spending control.
KC
Agree. Keynes did believe that over time the budget should ideally be in surplus as often as in deficit. We’ve villainized him on the right not because of what he really said, but because of how his ideas have been abused by congresses and presidents for such a long time.
The politicians view of Keynesianism is basically: “If ‘pump priming’ can solve a temporary growth problem, and if growth solves ALL problems, then infinite deficits should lead to infinite joy.” But alas.