Countless previous recessions actually…right through the twentieth century.
silly economists eh? chuh!
Youd have thought they would all have noticed how obvious it all is if a scottish nurse and bristolian tiler can have got it licked!
just to help a little…if the state maintains public employment on the daft premise that keeping all those Equal Opportunities Compliance Officers employed keeps up consumption then it must be funded. Since the net tax income on such consumption is less than 100% that means taking funds from the private sector economy OR from the future economy to do it.
The former will stifle the more productive method of growing an economy, the latter would be an insult to our children in having them pay for Gordon's profligacy.
EDIT: as it happens Im not necessarily against Keynesian economic stimuli (I favour a smaller state purely for libertarian reasons), but it's not even remotely as simple as thinking you can just increase the state wage bill to create economic growth.