By JON HILSENRATH
WASHINGTON—Eighteen months after President Barack Obama administered a massive dose of spending increases and tax cuts to a weak economy, a brawl has broken out among economists and politicians about whether fiscal-stimulus medicine is curing the illness or making it worse.
The debate is more than academic. It is shaping congressional decisions on whether to respond to the distressing prognosis for the U.S. economy with more government spending or a dose of deficit reduction.
