Same Old, Same Old

“These cuts come when more Vermonters will need state services,” Pollina said. “This is a time to put people to work, not throw people out of work.”
    Freeps

Mr. Pollina has a point.  The time for government to expand services and spend more is when the business cycle is in the down phase.  Fiscal policy, that is, should be counter-cyclical, and in broad terms most economists would agree with this proposition.  (Right, Art?)

But logic is not as pliable as a politician in debate and if you say spend more money and hire more people on the down slope, then you must also insist on restraining spending and holding down on hiring during an expansion.  And this – sadly but, perhaps, inevitably – Vermont did not do.  When times were good we spent like drunken sailors – under the euphemism, "waterfall appropriations" – and hired profligately.   

One suspects that if Mr. Pollina were to be elected governor and during his second or third term the state experienced boom times, he would be faithful to the logic of counter-cyclical fiscal policy and insist on frugality in budgeting and also impose a lid on hiring.  Perhaps even use the opportunity to reform and downsize the bureaucracy. 

Of course he would.