The latest country to run into trouble as a consequence of bloated government is Cyprus. To deal with its budgetary crisis, the government has resorted to legalized theft — confiscating bank deposits of people who were so prudent as to save, never expecting that their money would be expropriated. Jacob Hornberger writes about it here.
Well, so what if the government of a small, island nation decides to balance its books, however temporarily, by stealing? As Hornberger points out, FDR did the same thing back in 1933.
When governments can’t pay their bills, they almost never do the right thing and back away from needless expenditures and impossible promises. Instead, they resort to more of the authoritarianism that led to the crisis in the first place.
