The current recovery is seriously being threatened once again by what economist Paul Krugman calls "the deficit hawks." They advocate austerity with tired old arguments that have been shown time and again to be fallacious. Their absurd theory is that every dollar spent by government is one less dollar available for spending in the private sector thus cancelling out the spending multiplier leaving net zero stimulus. This myopic "idea" is not only simplistic (and wrong) but reveals the trouble conservatives have with considering the value of collective action and cooperation. When the economy is in recession because households are massively deleveraging their consumer debt while private businesses are loathe to invest due to the unusual risk involved considering the slow economy, it makes sense for the single largest entity in the economy, namely the federal government, to borrow from (and tax) the private sector. This is because consumers and businesses aren't spending and investing, so it is necessary for the government to spend and invest in order to restart economic growth and dramatically reduce the risk of private economic activity as jobs are created and business profits increase through higher sales.
Similarly, the crowding out theory, the notion that government borrowing will "crowd out" private borrowing by swelling demand in credit markets putting upward pressure on interest rates and downward pressure on economic growth, is unfounded as well. The problem is that the private sector is reluctant to borrow money to spend and invest due to the risks posed by the slow economy. Income and investment returns aren't assured. Consumers are deleveraging, businesses often can't borrow and interest rates are thus low due to what Keynes called a "liquidity trap" whereby zero bound interest rates still won't increase borrowing and investing. Thus, we see empirically that interest rates have consistently remained low despite high deficits.
This should be obvious to everyone although I suspect that tea party stubbornness is due more to partisan politics than sound economics. History has always proven the austerity advocates wrong. The idea that we are headed for a Eurozone type crisis is absurd; the US economy consists of one quarter of the global GDP and holds the biggest export markets in the world. Furthermore, unlike EU members, the US prints its own currency. Our trade partners are always happy to lend us money for fiscal stimulus to support assure their US export markets, keep US interest rates low and protect their bond investments (making tax increases on all but the rich unnecessary). Thus, threatening to default on publicly owed debt is incredibly stupid and can only harm the economy.