Right now, we face a crisis, and some people haven't faced the fact that this is a genuine emergency, requiring emergency measures. Many people have been caught up in the fiscal hysteria on the right, that demands we tackle the record deficits now.
There's a simple way to explain why we can't fix our fiscal mess until the economy improves.
Put it like this: There is no use changing the spark plugs when the battery is dead. Unless and until the economy recovers, the economic condition of every American is going to weight heavily on the economy, sapping the power we need to get the country as whole out of this mess.
The Republicans want to believe they scan solve the fiscal and economic problems in spite of the condition of the average American.
The plain truth of it, is that unless the condition of the average American improves, it will be harder to keep costs down on government without hurting the economy by losing people jobs.