Presidents Bush and Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve acted quickly and boldly to avert an economic meltdown in 2008 and 2009. It was the right thing to do so, and it worked. But policymakers got little credit for it, budget deficits spiked and most lawmakers ignored calls for further fiscal (tax and spending) stimulus. Nurturing the recovery was left to the Fed, which was forced to use unconventional tools since it had already pushed short-term interest rates as low as they could go.

Unless attitudes change, the country will be ill-equipped to combat the next economic downturn. "The Fed is not out of ammunition," says former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, but "there are signs that monetary policy in the United States and other industrial countries is reaching its limits, which makes it even more important that the collective response to a slowdown involve other policies — particularly fiscal policy. A balanced monetary-fiscal response would both be more effective and also reduce the need to use unconventional monetary tools."

We should start by strengthening the "automatic stabilizers," as my Center on Budget and Policy Priorities colleagues Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg recommend in a new paper, showcased at the recent Brookings conference "Are We Ready for the Next Recession?" These stabilizers are the automatic increases in federal spending on programs like unemployment insurance and SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) and decreases in tax revenues that happen when the economy weakens.

Unemployment insurance and SNAP help households with falling incomes in a recession maintain a higher level of spending, and that extra spending slows the fall in economic activity. Similarly, our progressive income tax, with its lower tax rates on smaller incomes, cushions the impact of earnings losses on households' income, giving those households the means to spend somewhat more. (In an expansion, the automatic stabilizers work in reverse to slow any buildup in inflationary pressures, with spending on unemployment insurance, SNAP and other programs falling while tax revenues rise.)

For about a generation before the Great Recession – a period dubbed "The Great Moderation" – the economy avoided sharp downturns or unacceptable bursts of inflation. In economic circles, the conventional wisdom took hold that monetary policy along with the automatic stabilizers could keep business cycle fluctuations moderate and that short-term fiscal policy not only had little to contribute but even could be counterproductive if there were excessive delays in implementing it.

The financial crisis and Great Recession jolted that complacency. We learned that the Fed could run out of room for using conventional monetary stimulus and that, under those circumstances, fiscal measures could prove particularly effective. We also learned lessons about strengthening the automatic stabilizers on the spending side, as Bernstein and Spielberg show.

Unemployment insurance is a critical automatic stabilizer with a high "bang-for-the-buck" impact on stimulating economic activity in a weak economy. But we should broaden its coverage and make it more responsive to longer unemployment spells when the economy weakens. President Obama's 2017 budget includes worthwhile proposals to make the program more effective in general and provide additional weeks of benefits in a timely manner when needed. Bernstein and Spielberg explain why it's important to have appropriate "triggers" to turn on additional weeks of benefits and turn them off when – but not before – the labor market is well on its way back to good health.

SNAP is among the most cost-effective sources of economic stimulus, since it's targeted on low-income households that receive the benefits monthly and spend them quickly. The 2009 Recovery Act boosted SNAP benefits temporarily to capitalize on that high-bang-for-the-buck impact, and Bernstein and Spielberg recommend that, analogous to unemployment insurance extensions, a temporary SNAP increase take effect automatically, perhaps with a trigger tied to state unemployment rates.

Unlike the federal budget, which can and should run deficits when the economy weakens, almost all states must balance their operating budgets. That, unfortunately, means they must raise taxes or cut spending when revenues fall in a recession. That's the opposite of what's good for the economy. The Recovery Act helped offset this "anti-stimulus" by raising the federal share of federal-state Medicaidcosts, thus relieving pressure for states to raise taxes or cut spending. As with the temporary SNAP boost, Bernstein and Spielberg recommend that state fiscal relief occur automatically, possibly through the same mechanism that triggers a temporary SNAP benefit increase.

Today's Congress, whose passions run far more toward slashing spending and balancing the budget at all costs, almost certainly won't enact such measures. Nevertheless, it's the right thing to do.