IT STRIKES ME as a little odd when I hear United States citizens commenting on the state of Hong Kong's fiscal affairs. For a dose of Operation Shock 'N Awe, they may wish to look at their own president's fiscal record.
The first chart tells you the essentials of this astounding story. It shows the record of the US federal deficit as a rolling 12-month total with a forecast for the three months until the end of the current fiscal year in September, the official forecast, not mine.
We start on the left side of the chart with George Bush Sr taking office and expanding the deficit over his four-year term of office to a new one-year record of US$332 billion.
Then the Democrats (the ones accused of being such wasters, you know) took control of the White House from the Republicans in 1993 under Bill Clinton and in eight years steadily wrested a $330 billion deficit into a $270 billion surplus, that peak there at the right hand side of the chart, real wasters you understand, oh yes.
But along came Bush Jr at the beginning of 2001 and in the space of just 30 months took that surplus back to a deficit of $312 billion and then announced last week that he expects this negative figure to reach $455 billion by the end of September. What a man.
Among his reasons for it is that he had to cut taxes to stimulate the economy. He certainly cut the taxes. That tax revenue was down by 25 per cent within barely two years of taking office. We shall have to wait to see whether this theory of economic performance, christened 'voodoonomics' the last time it was tried, stimulates the US economy. There is no sign of it yet.
But there you get your second excuse for the deficit. The economy is down. US economic growth was 1.5 per cent year over year in the quarter in which Mr Bush took office. The latest quarter showed 2 per cent growth. This is down, you see. Ah-hah, but that must be evidence that voodoonomics is working.