[zuluking]

Originally Posted by slava

^ really a lot of this is just pure right-wing fear mongering though. Governments can have debts, and frankly budgeting for the government is not anywhere near the same as budgeting for a household. I'm really tired of that line of though; its wrong and there are marked differences:

1. The government can not only go into debt, but here's an enormous difference for you; if they choose the government might literally never pay the debt back. There's honestly not a huge issue with that. We all expect (regardless of political spectrum) that the province will be here in 100 years, right? They aren't facing the deadlines of a normal household and likewise the constraints regarding debt repayment aren't there either.

2. Governments have things such as issuing bonds that they can take advantage of, or they can raise taxes. The ability to raise taxes and essentially generate revenue willingly is not equal to a household and certainly affords another opportunity to deal with financial obligations that households do not have. In fact part of the credit rating for a government is the size of that tax base and what kind of burdens are already there.

Anyway, i could write a lot more, and doubtless a full book could be written. Its just not true though.

I better clarify right away that i'm not advocating for a government to borrow huge amounts of money and never pay them back. I'm just pointing out an obvious and often ignored reality of governing as opposed to the average guy that is so often brought up.

Long story short, the reason that the governments budget the way they do is because they can.

piigs?