PUBLICATION of the Policy Council’s  fiscal policy framework – a document so impenetrable and laden with jargon that it comes with a two-page explanation of some of the worst examples – has helped put the focus back on the significance of the island contemplating borrowing millions of pounds to carry out capital projects.

Under the council’s proposed rules, Guernsey would be able to seek loans of up to £333m. Wrapped up in council-speak, that level of debt appears acceptable, almost a good thing to do.

What the report doesn’t say is that following the strategy to the letter would represent a debt burden of almost £8,000 per taxpayer. Nor does it set out why islanders, who are naturally careful with their own money, would want to saddle themselves with so much borrowing.

The reason, of course, is that debt represents the easy way out for politicians who like to promise much – but not have to worry about the consequences afterwards.

That thinking is exemplified in Treasury and Resources earlier report on capital prioritisation. It, too, uses well wrapped wording to explain its rigorously forensic approach to filtering projects when, in reality, it does nothing of the sort.

Its quasi-scientific ‘strategic review process’ was designed to create an illusion of thoroughness so that 19 projects valued at more than £300m. can be allowed to go forward with the States borrowing to fund them.

In reality, not a single hard question has been asked. Nowhere does T&R ask, for example, why the taxpayer should borrow to bail out Aurigny. If the airline has a future it can get money elsewhere, lessening the borrowing requirement by £6m. There are other examples, too, where a single question – ‘will the sky fall in if we don’t do this?’ – could have swept millions off the borrowing requirement.

If the credit crunch has taught one thing, it has to be that excessive or unnecessary debt is a bad thing.

Countless decent businesses have been brought down because clever people thought it a good idea to borrow huge sums on the back of the revenues those businesses were generating.

Unfortunately for local taxpayers, however, no matter how bad things become they will be expected to keep on repaying the borrowings deputies told them they must have.