The Star has an interesting piece on what they call "Apocalyptic Crisis Budgeting".

During the Reagan era, a friend and former colleague, a professor of American history, was invited to the deliberations of a Washington think-tank that provided policy direction for the Republican Party. As they discussed growing the debt and increasing the deficit, he was flabbergasted: "Are you not the party of balanced budgets and debt elimination?" The reply was unequivocal, "Our goal is to grow the deficit as much as possible in order to create political space to eliminate government-funded programming. Until then, we want high deficits while lobbying for a balanced budget — and promoting social program cuts as the only solution."

It's truly disappointing that signs of a similar mentality are beginning to surface here in Canada too.