The COVID-19 crisis is placing a tremendous fiscal squeeze on state and local governments in the United States. We argue that the federal government should increase its deficit to fill in the fiscal gap. In the absence of sufficient federal assistance, we recommend that states suspend their balanced budget rules and norms and run deficits in their operating budgets to maintain services and meet additional obligations due to the pandemic. A comparison with Eurozone countries shows that states have more than enough debt capacity to run short-term deficits to respond to the crisis.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 经济衰退期间州和地方财政紧缩的补救措施是什么？更多的债务，没关系

COVID-19 危机给美国的州和地方政府带来了巨大的财政紧缩。我们认为联邦政府应该增加赤字以填补财政缺口。在缺乏足够的联邦援助的情况下，我们建议各州暂停其平衡预算规则和规范，并在其运营预算中出现赤字，以维持服务并履行因大流行而产生的额外义务。与欧元区国家的比较表明，各国有足够的债务能力来应对危机来应对短期赤字。