With unemployment low, inflation high and interest rates on the rise, the time is right to bring back an old idea: bipartisan talks to reduce the federal budget deficit.

I know: Try to contain your excitement. But it wasn’t so long ago — about a decade — that the U.S. was consumed by a mania for deficit reduction. From the Simpson-Bowles Commission to the so-called Supercommittee, from sequestration to the fiscal cliff, the topic was unavoidable.

Republicans wanted sweeping cuts to government spending. Then-President Barack Obama was willing to meet them halfway, but only if they would join him in raising taxes on the wealthy. Ultimately, the grand bargain didn’t happen. But federal discretionary spending was restrained, the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush were partially reversed, and the deficit did fall.

Nowadays, nobody talks anymore about bipartisan deficit reduction, commissions or grand bargains. But a return to the political obsessions of a decade ago would suit the present moment.

Right now Americans are feeling good about declining gasoline prices. But the Federal Reserve is convinced it has fallen behind in fighting inflation, and Chair Jerome Powell has made clear that the bank is willing to “bring some pain to households and businesses” in order to reduce prices.

During former President Bill Clinton’s first term, in an implicit deal with the Fed, Clinton and congressional Democrats raised taxes and cut spending in their 1993 budget, which allowed the central bank to be more restrained in monetary policy and contributed to an economic boom.

In today’s politics there are two groups that are fundamentally opposed this idea of balanced fiscal consolidation: conservatives and progressives.

Conservatives oppose it because the Republican Party remains fanatically committed to the idea of low taxes, especially on the wealthiest Americans. The left opposes it because they believe that the American economic model should be utterly transformed into something resembling the much higher-tax states of Northern Europe, so they’re loath to waste any hard-won tax increases on anything other than increased spending.

But that’s what’s made it such a political sweet spot for centrist Democrats like Clinton and Obama. By embracing deficit reduction now, President Joe Biden could send a clear signal to moderate voters: Supporting Democrats does not mean greenlighting two more years of big progressive policy change.

Progressives, of course, wouldn’t appreciate that message. But Biden would only be telling activists what they already know. They took big swings with Build Back Better and scored big wins on climate change and student debt. Now they just don’t have the votes to pass any more big partisan bills, even if every possible midterm break goes their way.

People who pay close attention to politics know all this. There’s no real downside — and plenty of upside — to making sure it’s communicated clearly to less-attentive voters.

A focus on the deficit would also underscore a key truth about the GOP: While Republicans tend to be trusted on issues such as “the economy” and “federal spending,” any time they offer specific ideas to reduce the deficit without raising taxes, they come up with something hideously unpopular.

Forcing a national conversation on priorities could help move politics out of the realm of pure symbolism. Yes, choices and trade-offs can be tedious and unpleasant to contemplate. But they are also the real work of government, and putting them back at the center of policy conversations is a useful strategy for restoring some sanity to public discourse.

It’s even possible that bipartisan overtures on deficit reduction would lead to actual policy. Unlike a decade ago, policy to reduce the deficit would be a genuine boon to U.S. homeowners and growth-oriented businesses.

Biden was a huge deficit hawk in the 1990s. Now that he’s brought '90s-style full employment back, the time is right for him to return to his roots.

Matthew Yglesias is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a co-founder of Vox.