Jamaica is a remarkable country. It has crafted a budget of $358 billion, and plans to borrow over one-third of that amount to finance it, which is an extremely high proportion.

Now borrowing is not that remarkable, for many countries, big and small, borrow to generate growth in their economy.

What is remarkable about Jamaica is that it seems to be in a state of permanent mendicancy.

In short, we always seem to be living off borrowed money.

What I mean by that is this: debts are being incurred to meet primarily short-term, as against long-term needs, without any significant reduction in the size of the debt seeming possible, or even likely.

Total debt

The debt total passed the US$850 billion mark in April and as the calendar year draws to a close, should near the US$900 billion mark. Wow.

One appreciates that development comes at a huge cost, but I cannot see why we continue to rack up huge jumps in the total debt bill, over such short periods.

If it was primarily low cost long-term funds that we were borrowing, as in the case of the Petro-Caribe funds, then at least one could ponder a little easier on the debt burden being carried by future generations, but what is worrying is the greater reliance on higher cost funds from private local and international markets, hence the worrisome implications of the fall-out from the IDB investment loan freeze.

The same principles of reasonability regarding lending are as true for an individual as for a country - that is, you must not borrow beyond your capacity to repay.

Capacity to repay

Now while no one expects international debtors to send in gun boats to seize customs to safeguard repayment - as was the case early in the last century - it will clearly restrict the future capacity of the next generation's government to meet their own expenditure needs, when so much money has to be set aside just for debt repayment (which is first in line as per Jamaica's constitutional requirements).

I am afraid that not even a large tax package that you can almost be certain will be levied during the next fiscal year, regardless of which party wins the next general elections, will mitigate these high debt costs that we are bearing.

One can formulate excellent debt reduction strategies about how to reduce Jamaica's debt stock, but it clearly is not working at present, given the steady rise in overall debt.

Everyone seems happy to have the country run on borrowed money.