Don't overtax and overspend: How Modi govt can avoid cooking its own goose

The govt must understand that if you spend more than you earn, you will end up bankrupt one day

In 2003, the then finance minister Jaswant Singh phoned one day to ask how he could put more money into peoples’ pockets. “There’s only one say, Sir,” I told him, “you must take away less from them.”

“I know,” he said, “but how will I pay the bills?”

You don’t need a PhD in economics to know that if, over a sustained period, say five years for a family and fifty for a country, you spend more than you earn you will end up bankrupt one day. The thing is while ordinary people know this, governments don’t.

That is why