Government Deficits and Debt

by Rick Lowe

Government deficits and debt have been a source of consternation for many right thinking Bahamians for a long time. Unfortunately this does not change governments bad habits.

Of course in real life, Bahamian politicians are the only people allowed to have bad habits. The rest of us mere mortals have to abide by all the ever increasing silly laws they can muster.

But back to the subject at hand.

The Nassau Institute released this article Facts and Figures or Impressive Sounding Speeches back in October 2005 and the situation is not really improving according to recently released numbers (now at $2,712 Billion) from The Central Bank of The Bahamas.

So we will have more government debt to pile on at the end of this fiscal year. If this was football, we can charge the government with piling on. Unfortunately it is the citizens of the country that will have to pay the taxes to reduce the debt at the end of the day.

And how about America you ask? Well the situation is not very differnet there. This commentary on the Cato Institute web site is informative as well: A Cap On The Spending Orgy.

Well that's enough to be depressed about for this weekend.