The Gillard government must give up its addiction to wasteful spending borrowing and taxing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Politicians are addicted to spending and revenue extraction. As with an addict, there's little pause for moral or legal contemplation.
The idea that growth will remedy our debts is so addictive for politicians, but the citizens end up paying the price.
To simply argue that public spending must always go up and never be cut is irresponsible.
When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.
The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction.
Debt can be the most addictive thing in the universe, and it can kill you. You get used to living high off the hog. It was intoxicating.
If you are spending too much, you cut back on spending and you raise your revenues. And that's it.
We say that anytime budgets are balanced and an ample savings account has been set aside, government should just stop collecting taxes. Better to leave that money in the pockets of those who earned it, than to let it burn a hole, as it always does, in the pockets of government.
We need to stop spending money we don't have.
The Prime Minister in the UK thinks spending and borrowing more is the right thing to do in the circumstances, and is busily trying to bail out chunks of the private sector which would otherwise have to adjust more quickly to the painful reality that we have been living beyond our means.