Recent comments by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers illustrate the incoherence of the administration’s fiscal policy. Previously, they were against raising taxes in the short-run because that would damage the economic recovery. Now they are hinting or suggesting that recovery depends on raising taxes to reduce the deficit.

Previously, they supported rising levels of spending and deficits to supposedly grow the economy, but now they are saying that deficits need to be cut for the economy to grow. Geithner and Summers seem to be repeatedly changing their message depending on the political requirements of the news cycle, rather than providing a consistent program based on economic theory.

The reality is that rising taxes and spending suck resources out of the private sector economy, which damages growth whether we are in an expansion or a contraction. That’s because governments in America already consume more than one-third of everything produced in the nation, and so further resources added to the government sector produce very little or negative returns.

Geithner and Summers ought to stop trying to manipulate the short-term macroeconomy, and instead focus on economic reforms to remove obstacles to private sector growth over the long-term.