Charlie McCreevy Spending quote

southsiderosie

Did Charlie McCreevy really say, in relation to public spending, "When I have it I'll spend it. When I don't I won't."? I have heard this a million times, but I can't actually find where he said it. I'm a bit curious; I went to an interesting seminar recently on norms of economic policy making and this came up - it's a great (dreadful) quote, but I've only seen it mentioned in recent op-eds and can't find whatever the original source/context was for this comment.

Oh and just for ****s and giggles, here's a quote from Al Reynolds, circa 1989 on government spending:

“Ireland has had far too much of the ‘one step forward’ subsequently necessitating ‘two steps back’. If a supposedly commercial proposition will not pay for itself, it is not commercial! If a social aspiration is not of a priority nature and if it needs budgetary funds which are not there – then we cannot afford it until we are producing the wealth to pay for it. If we disregard this fact of life, we simply store up bills for the future”

Oh if only...

later12

Does anyone else seem to remember that this "when I have it I'll spend it" speech is in a video clip? Perhaps on reeling in the years? For some reason I am sure I can recall him saying it on camera, but perhaps that's just because of his unique and distinctive voice.

beeftotheheels

Matt Cooper cites it at bullet point 2

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2002/nov/17/a-dozen-reasons-why-i-have-no-confdence-in-charlie/

when you have it, you spend it and the mistake is trying to spend it when you haven't got it

Sand

@southsiderosie

Oh and just for ****s and giggles, here's a quote from Al Reynolds, circa 1989 on government spending:

Quote:
“Ireland has had far too much of the ‘one step forward’ subsequently necessitating ‘two steps back’. If a supposedly commercial proposition will not pay for itself, it is not commercial! If a social aspiration is not of a priority nature and if it needs budgetary funds which are not there – then we cannot afford it until we are producing the wealth to pay for it. If we disregard this fact of life, we simply store up bills for the future”

Oh if only...

I think this implies the great error of the 1990s was that we just about scraped through the hard times of the 1980s, and we didnt bother applying the lessons learnt to reform our systems of governance to bring them out of the 19th century. It seems clear the insiders are hellbent on repeating the error - theres already calls to return to the "social partnership" disaster.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Scofflaw

An interesting example of the way popular quotes get distorted over time to better fit the public perception of the person who made them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

View

Sand wrote: »

@southsiderosie


I think this implies the great error of the 1990s was that we just about scraped through the hard times of the 1980s, and we didnt bother applying the lessons learnt to reform our systems of governance to bring them out of the 19th century.

Why would we do something like that?

After all, when we are in "Disaster mode", we - as a society - don't want to stop and start fiddling with the system since, getting away from the disaster area is what counts. And, then, of course, when we are back in "Normal mode", why on earth would we want to go to the hassle of changing things when everything is going smoothly?

southsiderosie

Scofflaw wrote: »

An interesting example of the way popular quotes get distorted over time to better fit the public perception of the person who made them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Well, yes and no. Some might argue that "spending when you have it" is perhaps not the wisest course of action either, especially when you are as much of a fan of tax cuts as McCreevy was.

Other than the Chileans, I am struggling to think of an example of a democratic government that was committed to counter-cyclical spending over the last ten years.

Scofflaw

southsiderosie wrote: »

Well, yes and no. Some might argue that "spending when you have it" is perhaps not the wisest course of action either, especially when you are as much of a fan of tax cuts as McCreevy was.

Other than the Chileans, I am struggling to think of an example of a democratic government that was committed to counter-cyclical spending over the last ten years.

In fact, that's my point - that what McCreevy is known for is a pro-cyclic folly. The original quote obscures that slightly, while the modified version fits the bill better, despite not being what the man actually said.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sand

The most ironic thing, given McCreevys assigned reputation as a mad spending maniac, is that McCreevy got given his marching orders for two reasons:

A) Everyone hated him, mainly because he enjoyed winding up people, also because he ignored the DoF mandarins ( given the comments of certain posters on this site, their hatred of him still runs deep), and thirdly because he was far too cynical in electoral vote buying for even FF TDs.
He wanted to control spending, when Fianna Fail electoral demands and the social partnership agreements (yes, you David Begg and Jack O Connor) demanded huge spending increases.

McCreevys quote is just a cruder way of saying what Reynolds said - we can spend money when we have it, we cant spend it when we dont.

@View

Why would we do something like that?

After all, when we are in "Disaster mode", we - as a society - don't want to stop and start fiddling with the system since, getting away from the disaster area is what counts. And, then, of course, when we are back in "Normal mode", why on earth would we want to go to the hassle of changing things when everything is going smoothly?

True, which is the only rationale I can apply to those who are seeking and championing the worst possible deals for Ireland in the current day - they want to ensure Ireland is crushed to such a degree that Ireland is faced with a final, inescapable choice - reform, or die.

Im very sympathetic to the reform agenda, but not to the extent that I want to kill the patient.