Blaming these recessions on reduced government spending seems to fly in the face of logic. None of these bubbles was going to resolve itself without a bloodbath, ignoring them would seem to be a recipe for larger disasters.

The Volker recession could have been handled by the government becoming the intermediary buyer of oil and absorbing the loss at Treasury.

Bubbles are often the result of a glut of reserves from prior bond maturity and nowhere to go except the private sector markets. If deficits don't happen there aren't bond issues. Some economists place partial blame for the '08 recession and the housing bubble on Clinton's surplus budgets.