Why balanced budgets are killing the Democratic Party

Canada's Liberal Party just showed them a better way to think about spending

Balancing is a tricky task.
(Image credit: iStock)

Across the developed world, the cultural hegemony of the balanced budget has been one of the largest political obstacles for left-leaning parties. From the Netherlands to the U.K. to the U.S., the political and media elite have made "new laws shall not increase the budget deficit" a political commandment. As parties which generally support maintaining or increasing government spending, it's put them in a political bind — and a totally unnecessary one.

However, one recent center-left party has bucked the trend. Canada's Liberals ran on an explicit platform of more borrowing and spending to take advantage of low interest rates — and they won big. It's a good lesson for the Democrats and the U.S. as a whole, as we scramble around for revenue sources.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.