Deeper in debt
Sir: If, as Nicholas Davenport says (21 January) the Treasury are obscure about expenditure plans, they are all too clear about devouring the country's capital by spending borrowings as if they were revenue.
The difference between their total internal borrowings in the last financial year and the value of additional assets held against the National Debt amounted to no less than £6,375 million. Can this sum represent anything other than capital and potential capital borrowed and spent as revenue? If not, how can this process be allowed to continue? Not that it is anything new; it has been going on for years under governments of both parties. What is new is the situation now reached where the deadweight portion of the Debt that not covered by revenue-producing assets is now more than half the total (£34,000 million out of £67,000 million).
If, on the other hand, there is no need for any limit to be set to the accumulation of deadweight debt why, in logic, is there any need for taxation at all? Why not borrow all our savings all the time to pay for everything? Can someone please answer.
Kenneth Middleton 13 Dean Park Crescent, Edinburgh
Previous page
