Recently, the discussion in Europe about the need for austerity programs and higher taxes has continued to use the original Euro currency agreement, which allowed governments to run deficits of 3% of GDP. This was foolish from the beginning, but is especially foolish now that the governments of Europe find themselves nearly bankrupt. How does reducing government deficits to 3% of GDP help if the economy if only growing at 1% per year. The debt continues to grow and government continues to take a larger and larger portion of productive economic activity and destroy it via redistribution.
Kate at SDA posted an EXCELLENT video explaining why more government is bad, and why higher taxes are not the solution to deficits:
The only solution to the debt problems is LESS government spending. As Frederic Bastiat wrote over 160 years ago:
The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.