Michael Barone points to a piece by Fred Barnes (sub req’d, but Barnes has mentioned this before) that explains that helping an economy by reducing spending can be done. Barone summarizes:

In the 1990s Canada’s Liberal party government reduced its national debt and revived its economy by, among other things, reducing federal employment by 45,000 jobs, 14% of the total. The ratio of spending cuts to tax increases was nearly 7-1. Overall Canada’s economy, which grew by less than 1% annually between 1989 and 1993, grew by an average of 3.4% between 1994 and 2006.