John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DON PITTIS IN CBC NEWS
“Deficits can mean pain ahead, or they can be an investment in the future:
“When does government spending become reckless? No one seems to know anymore”
"Deficits can mean pain ahead, or they can be an investment in the future"
Here's journalism providing election talking points for the party in power, the one running large deficits and promising more.
There is, of course, a grain of truth here. All good propaganda is built on truth, "selective" truth. That way it carries some force, as opposed to mere fairy tales.
But the incompleteness of the author's theme becomes obvious with the "buying a home" analogy.
You see, generally people can buy only one home, and that home serves one of the central needs of life, shelter. And there are very real limits on the amount they can borrow.
But government has no limit on the number of homes it can buy, or anything else for that matter. And it has practically no limit on the amount it can borrow. And it doesn't need shelter.
And it has always the artificial political stimulus that by making certain purchases, it can swing votes in perhaps key regions, an almost irresistible attraction for governments to spend on things which are not investments at all.
If we consistently had truly wise and careful government, the argument would hold, there are investments by government at times worth running deficits, but we do not have such government.
We certainly do not.
