In a research note that’s been making the rounds of economics blogs this week, Berner declares that “America’s long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now under way.”

By “train wreck,” he means out-of-control federal budget deficits that he’s sure will finally drag the economy under — as if we weren’t already feeling badly enough about its shaky state.

Berner, you’ll remember, sounded the alarm about the first round of deficit spending that followed the tight budgets of the final Clinton years:

[T]here are those who argue that tax cuts alongside falling interest rates are the proper pick-me-up for the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seems game. He has endorsed tax cuts and took the benchmark Federal Funds rate down to 4% from 6.5% last December. … Adds Richard Berner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley: “These tax cuts are a big deal. The tax-cut train has left the station, and it is clearly going to be stimulative.”

I’ll quote Paul Krugman:

[The 2001 tax cuts] didn’t seem to help all that much. Formally, the recession ended in late 2001, but most labor-market indicators continued to worsen into mid-2003.