Briefly discuss the highlights of fiscal policy's evolution in the US over the last century.

The main highlights of US fiscal policy over the last 100
years would have to be summed up by saying that the US moved more and more towards
Keynesianism beginning with the Great Depression.  In recent decades, however, the US
seems to have lost the political will to have anything other than expansionary fiscal
policy, regardless of the effects of such policies on the federal deficit.  This may be
changing in today's political climate, but it is too soon to
tell.

Before the New Deal, fiscal policy was not really
used by the federal government to try to manage the economy.  Beginning with the New
Deal, however, the government came more and more to use taxes and spending to try to
create growth in the economy.  Lately, however, the political will to cut spending or
increase taxes seems to have been lost.  The US has moved away from Keynesianism (which
countenances the use of fiscal policy to slow the economy as well as to heat it) and has
moved toward a "free lunch" fiscal policy where taxes are constantly lowered without any
decreases in government spending.