"but local political sensibilities deem budget deficits disastrous and unendurable"
A very sensible position. Greece has demonstrated the problem of imbalanced budgets in some style. Japan may be next, with public sector debt at 200% of GDP and rising, even as the economy slows and an ageing population retire. And too many of the major European economies are looking at impoverished futures. The UK, for example, will have public sector net debt of £1.5 trillion by 2017. At typical long term interest rates, that's both £60bn a year spent on interest, plus an obligation to repay or roll-over the £1.5 trillion on future generations.
So not only will kids (if they go to university) end up with huge tuition fees and three years of living costs as a circa £50,000 loan, but by the time they join the workforce in the later tweny-teens or early 20202's they'll also be having to shoulder something of the order of a £50,000 per head share of the national debt.
There's a small number of countries averse to public debt, and as far as I can see they are the sensible few. As for the rest (US, Japan, China, UK, Eurozone), how long can you keep spending more than you have?
For anybody who wants to suggest that short term or purely cyclical deficits are OK, I'd just remind them that UK income tax started off as a temporary measure in response to a short term deficit.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
