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It’s looking as though this fall’s elections will focus on one question: Should government spend more or spend less?

Individuals have firm opinions on this, of course, and individual votes add up to a national decision. But it’s little more than wishful thinking to expect “the wisdom of the crowd” to come up with the perfect answer.

People who study and discuss the topic are far from agreeing.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley said in a recent e-mail: “Instead of shoveling deficit dollars at the economy and cranking up tax rates to rationalize even more government spending, we ought to be showering job-creating incentives towards the job-creating engine in America, and that’s small business.”

Central Iowa radio host, social activist and former state legislator Ed Fallon wrote: “There are no ‘good’ choices, if by ‘good’ we mean easy and without consequences. But if we’re able to accept that today’s crisis (of which living on borrowed money is but one aspect) demands individual and collective sacrifice not seen since World War II, then there is a good choice. That choice is to simplify. Everything. Starting now. … It’s a choice that partisan operatives in both major political parties refuse to discuss and don’t want to hear.”

New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman thinks the federal government’s economic stimulus bill of 2009 didn’t go far enough. It focused on tax cuts and aid to state and local governments, but didn’t allocate much for infrastructure projects, even though that was what many of us expected. “I would have been for an all-out push for public works spending,” Krugman says in a CNNMoney.com video. “We could still do that.”

As voters, we tend to favor candidates who agree with us or make complex problems sound simple. This time around, we’d better seek out candidates who understand economics and are willing to work together to find the best solution. If there were a simple answer, we would know it by now.