SO, IT’S looking increasingly likely that the States is going to put itself – that is to say, all of us – very deeply into debt.

That’s no real surprise. Indeed it’s the inevitable consequence of its every action over the last 10 months. Nevertheless, it is a major act of betrayal towards future generations of taxpayers.

We do badly need to invest in capital projects ranging from education and health to transport. Digby, Lord Jones was right to say that failure to maintain our infrastructure would be myopic and could lead to a downward spiral.

However, his easy answer of buying it all on credit is deeply misguided. There is only one sustainable way to keep our capital assets up to date. That is for the States to raise more income on its revenue account than it spends. It can then invest the surplus in the schools and hospitals and other facilities we need as a community.

That approach raises major difficulties for our present crop of politicos. Either it means cutting spending (unpopular) or else raising extra revenue (unpopular) or more likely both (deeply unpopular).

So if being re-elected is more important than fiscal responsibility, which alas seems to be the case for many of them, then reaching for the credit card is the obvious and easy way out.

Nor is it made any more palatable by the fact that cash may be raised through a bonds issue. It’s true that if the States has to borrow, then this is probably the best way to do it.

I may even buy some myself, but the central issue is whether we want to go down the road of a national debt in the first place.

If borrowing a few hundred million quid on good terms could provide all of Guernsey’s capital requirements for a whole generation, then there might be a case for it. It would still take great prudence and discipline to then generate the surpluses needed to repay the loan. Indeed, with so many economic uncertainties at the moment, the ability of any future States to repay the debt without resorting to savage spending cuts is doubtful, but at least a one-off loan would be a limited, defined and strategic excursion into the credit market.

Of course, the opposite would be true. Once the States had dipped its snout into the trough of borrowing and got a taste for it, it would return to it again and again. Indeed, it’s hard to see how it could avoid it. Urgent capital requirements will just keep coming up.

Education doesn’t just need Les Beaucamps rebuilt – waiting in the wings are La Mare, the College of FE and several primary schools.

The same is true of Health, Public Services and the rest.

If we can’t pay for today’s capital priorities by generating surpluses, then what hope do we have of affording the new priorities in five or 10 years’ time? After all, by then the general revenue account will be haemorrhaging cash to meet interest payments and repay the original debt. The answer will be to borrow more and Guernsey’s debt burden will snowball.

How do we find ourselves in this sorry position? Well, having to give up most of our corporation tax at the very time that the world has caught financial flu certainly hasn’t helped. However, what can’t be cured must be endured. What is shameful is that the States has behaved in a way which suggests that no such straightened financial situation exists.

Scrapping student loans, a u-turn on paid parking and refusing to rationalise primary education: they were all good ways to score public Brownie points in the short-term, but such a populist approach is utterly unaffordable and unsustainable.

What are the chances of this House adopting any suggested savings coming out of the Fundamental Spending Reviews if they are at all controversial?

After all, why should the States care about running a deficit when it has discovered how to use a credit card? If this States were a family, it would be a financially dysfunctional one, heading inevitably for the CAB’s debt counselling service once Christmas was over.

The inconvenient truth is that States borrowing for projects that don’t generate sufficient income/savings to both service and repay the loan is just cynically passing on costs to future taxpayers.

For once I find myself in full agreement with Deputy Dave Jones. Does that worry me?

Of course not – he has to be right from time to time…