Pictures of Austerity

Brendan Mochoruk and Louise Sheiner of the Brookings Institution say that Fiscal Headwinds are Abating:

Tight fiscal policy by local, state, and federal governments held down economic growth for more than four years, but that restraint finally appears to be over...

This is a pretty good summary of the charts:

Fiscal policy is no longer a source of contraction for the economy, but neither is it a source of strength.

But in my view the statement "neither is it a source of strength" understates how poorly fiscal policy has been managed. The strong headwinds never should have been there to begin with, and we have yet to feel the wind at our backs: