Regular readers won’t be surprised that I had another crack at this topic. The time seemed right. From a column published today in the Age.
Call it the audacity of hope.
In the political playbook of George W. Bushs advisor and confidant Karl Rove, you go after your enemy where you are weak or they are strong.
John Howard was at his audacious best working from the Rove playbook in 2004. His authority having been undermined by the duplicity of his 2001 claim that boat people had risked drowning their own children for a photo op, Howard declared the 2004 election would be about whom you trust.
As we learned more about Mr Latham it turned out Howard had a point.
Now Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is telling the good denizens of Queensland that in running up budget deficits and higher debt, in presiding over a downgrade in her Governments credit rating, shes doing the difficult thing, the tough, the unpopular thing. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather.
Here you were thinking it was the easier thing to do. This tough thing the Premier is doing turns out to be her least worst political option, all the easy options having run out.
Governments, state and federal have been taking the easy option for around a decade during which we should have been investing more in infrastructure, skills, and productivity where necessary and prudent by increased borrowing.
At least Queensland has done better than most state governments, with a strong capital program thats continuing where other states have been winding theirs back to preserve their AAA ratings (for a while anyway). Queensland has also mostly avoided shonky public private partnerships which usually cost more and simply push government debt off the books.
At least now, making a virtue of necessity, the Queensland Labor Government will be advancing the sensible arguments that have gone missing for so long. Theyll be saying that yes, other things being equal debt is bad. But just as those with a mortgage believe the benefits of owning their own home are greater than the costs (including the debt and interest they incur) so borrowing enables governments to generate greater benefits than the costs they incur. Just as firms decide to borrow more to grow rather than fixate on having a AAA rating (a AA rating is nearly as strong) now governments well at least one government is explaining why AA is better for a growing state than AAA.
I couldnt agree more. Nor it seems could Standard and Poors whose statement on releasing its credit downgrade sounded almost apologetic, repeatedly emphasising Queenslands strong balance sheet, its strong management and strong system support.
So why, when the arguments are starting to run my way do I have a queasy feeling? One can always find investments with a higher expected return than the interest one will pay, but as one takes on more of them, one also increases risk. Australias debt phobia may not have been very economically sophisticated, but there was a kind of folk wisdom in it. As former Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane pointed out, Governments find it politically easier to be generous with your money than to be niggardly. Just ask Gough Whitlam or John Howard. For a decade, fiscal populism has seen us anathematise debt. Now the pendulum is swinging. But because its swinging from one kind of fiscal populism to another, I cant help but fear it will swing too far in the opposite direction.
While fiscal policy lurches away from one extreme and we wonder how far it will lurch in the opposite direction, the different political history of monetary policy has led to the evolution of institutions to finesse these problems. We have a public, expert body which sets interest rates the Reserve Bank of Australia.
So theres one way in which Anna Bligh could take us towards a better world, rather than simply play reposition the pendulum. At the same time as maintaining the capital works program and accepting the resulting increased debt, she could establish an independent body to publicly advise her Government on the cost effectiveness of its capital investments, the prudent level of debt and the appropriate time to return the budget to an operating surplus. At a time when the credit rating agencies had trashed their reputation (handing out AAA ratings to securitised sub-prime mortgage bonds) it would be like establishing an internal government credit rating agency which would itself enhance market confidence and lower Queenslands cost of borrowing.
And Queenslanders could boast of having Australias only premier with real balls.
You have found just the right balance here.
You say Queensland Government is able to explain why AA is better for a growing state than AAA (in present circumstances) and why borrowing can yield a good return in the long run. You say hurrah to that. But you advise Anna Bligh that, at the same time as she is building up debt, she can get an independent body to advise on the cost effectiveness of its capital investments. That part is fine.
Two questions could still arise. First, what happens to Queensland’s operating deficit? And secondly, why not apply exactly the same test to Federal authorities (without asking them to beef up super funds to 12% until the equity problem is fixed up and instead looking for alternative ways of building up savings)..
My fear is that the political right could use responsible short-term deficits by labor govts as an excuse to adopt Laffer curve ‘deficits don’t matter’ Bush II financing. Julie Bishop hinted at this. I can see the coming argument that govt borrowing doesn’t violate individual freedom like taxation does.
Thanks Fred,
As you would realise, in an op ed, space concerns prevent one addressing everything one wants.
1) An operating deficit is fine so long as it’s sustainable, and the sustainability of a sub-national government’s operating deficit is much constrained because it’s using a currency issued by someone else – the central government. Subject to that (very important) caveat – sub-national governments can go broke – it seems to me the same principles apply to sub-national governments’ operating results and countercyclicality as apply to national governments. But perhaps there are other reasonable views.
2) I would apply the same test to fed governments – this was a column on state fiscal policy. Neither of us like the inequities of our current super system because the tax concession is much higher for high income workers than low income workers. But I think you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. We desperately need higher saving. And increasing compulsory super does not give any tax benefits to wealthy people that they don’t have access to already. Further, even if fiscal policy has the assistance of an independent watchdog, I very much doubt it can generate the kind of increase in national savings that we need. Since Jeff Kennett departed the scene, governments look upon surpluses that are really large as gifts to their political opponents who can spend them on coming into government.
Geoff,
The right can use ‘starve the beast’ tactics any time they like. The current deficits have them heading in very much the opposite direction. So I’m not sure why a Labor deficit takes the Libs to ‘deficits don’t matter’.