Least Surprising Hypocrisy Ever

Declan at Crawl Across the Ocean catches Andrew Coyne preparing the ground for Conservative deficits:

What the Tories can't say, but I will, is this: even if we do run a small deficit, we do not all turn into pumpkins. The Grits were earlier trying to claim, on the basis of who know's whose numbers, that the Tories would run a "$12-billion deficit." Even if that were true, which I doubt, that's $12-billion over five years, or a little more than $2-billion a year -- they could fund it out of the contingency reserve. And even if they did not, that's $2-billion, on a GDP in excess of $1.4-trillion. That's not even rounding error. It's rounding error on the rounding error.

Of course, if Paul Martin had announced a $2 billion deficit last year, the Conservatives (including Andrew Coyne) would have been all over him. Monte Solberg jumped all over the Liberals and the NDP for deficits that they didn't cause, or that didn't exist, last spring (which I wrote about here.)

Now, the irony is I actually agree with Coyne here - deficits aren't the end of the world, especially when we're talking about relatively meager ones. The question is what are we using the deficit for - tax cuts, or stimulus? If we're running deficits to build highways and electric generation, I say go for it. If we're running deficits to finance tax cuts and service restrictions (in short, the Conservative platform) than we're simply paying twice - in debt.

Of course, I'll still be alive in 50 years when we're still paying off Mulroney's debt. Andrew Coyne won't. So it's possible that's coloring his interpretation of things.