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All right. Suppose we accept that the debt-to-GDP ratio, rather than the annual deficit, is the right measure. Who’s to say, however, that there’s anything special about its current level? Or even the trend?

If it is barbaric superstition to restrain spending, with all of society’s pressing needs, in pursuit of an arbitrary target like a zero deficit, how is it any less barbaric to do so in pursuit of an equally arbitrary target for the debt-to-GDP ratio? And having freed ourselves from the one, are we not just as likely to cast off the other? Today the conventional wisdom is a declining debt-to-GDP ratio. But perhaps some future skeptic will suggest it is sufficient that it should not rise.

Or even that it should, provided it does not rise too quickly. Would anyone really notice if the debt were to rise from 30 per cent to 32 per cent of GDP? Or from 32 per cent to 33? Or 34? Or 35?

On the other hand, if there’s no special significance to any particular debt-to-GDP target, what’s to prevent a skinflint like me from arguing it should fall further, faster? The Liberals are content that it should exceed 30 per cent of GDP four years from now. But why not set a target of, say, 25 per cent — a level that would require us, not just to balance the budget, but run surpluses?

Just switching from deficit to debt targets, in other words, doesn’t really answer the question. Or maybe it’s not the right question. Maybe the question we should be asking is not how much governments should borrow, but why they should do so at all.