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The €64 billion question

The €64 billion question

Tuesday 6th Jan 2015

Last year’s government figures are in and we managed, again, to spend billions and billions of Euro that we don’t own, to keep teachers, nurses, Gardaí and even our elected officials in work. The overrun was €8 billion, (€8 thousand million) a huge amount of money for a country already up to its ears in debt.

‘The spending out-turn is worrying’ – Davy

Yet there are those who want us to spend more and more and more…money that we don’t have. In fact, to do some sums, if our running deficit continues at the current rate (@Davyresearch this morning says ‘…the spending out-turn is worrying’) then, allowing for compound interest we could add another €64 billion to our national debt, over the next seven years – and that’s not allowing for the massive interest bill already accruing on current borrowings.

The Anti-Austerity Alliance –hey Big Spender.

ISME agrees that the bank debt burden of €64 billion, placed on the shoulders of generations to come, is wrong. But this morning the Anti-Austerity Alliance called on the government to open up another 2,000 hospital beds, that is, to spend more money the State doesn’t have and therefore to borrow more. But it seems to be OK to call for this because it is populist, doesn’t appear to cost anything (until the tax bill comes in later) and of course appeals to the ‘something for nothing’ attitude of their constituency. Like other public services ‘somebody else will pay’. However, just like the bank bill, these massive borrowings are being placed on the shoulders of future generations.

The banks’ billions are wrong. Borrowing for current spending is also wrong.

So why is it not wrong to burden the future of the State with €64 billion through economic mismanagement, running a bloated and self-serving (they’re currently negotiating with themselves to give themselves back the wage cuts ‘they’re owed’) bureaucracy, while thinking that the bank debt burden is wrong to the point of being seen as an ‘economic war crime’? What’s the difference?

The cuckoo steals from the nest of other birds

Is ISME alone in thinking that this is a world gone crazy? – That it’s OK to borrow and spend on current spending – that is, not on capital projects that have an economic payback? The cynicism of our ‘public spenders’ is sickening. They don’t give a hoot about the public good. So long as they can use the public purse to pursue their dreams of a nightmare socialist state, they will avoid telling the truth that every penny misspent by the state is theft from the public they purport to serve.

They are human cuckoos.