Government verbiage

Re: Stop saying spending was “slashed,” John Robson, Aug. 29

John Robson entertainingly points out the silliness of calling the time- honoured government practice of raising spending on a specific program by three per cent instead of an earlier promise to raise it by six per cent and describing the difference as “slashing” spending. He says he’d like to see a government actually “cut” spending, instead of “slashing” it.

Alas, governments have already done an end run around the sentiments Mr. Robson expresses. You see, they no l onger even call it “s pending” anymore. “Spending” has acquired a pejorative sense that makes politicians seem out of touch with their cash- strapped constituents, and that just won’t do. Nowadays, the correct Orwellian phraseology is “investing,” as in, “The government of ( insert your jurisdiction of choice here) announces it is investing X million dollars” in a harebrained and ineffective program to do whatever. That’s because unlike “spending,” “investing” is always seen as a good thing, so more i nvesting i s even better, and only reactionary curmudgeons could possibly be against “investing.”

Another feature of this new nomenclature, which is very attractive from the Statist point of view, is that no one ever calls for “investing” to be slashed. Further, we note that on the (increasingly) rare occasions that any government actually does cut spending, by no matter how minuscule an amount, the rule seems to be that any mention of it in public must be accompanied by the adjective “Draconian.” Harry Koza, Toronto