Cicero’s budget plan – 55 BC
“The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be
tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be
curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work
instead of living on public assistance.” – Cicero, 55 BC
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Patrick Poke
:
Well Rome did eventually fall… 500 years later.
Aaron Somner
:
I hope these words that were spoken do not lose there impact due to the argument over who they are actually attributed to. The reason they were verbalised was due to the future spending of government and how governments allways collapse because of debt. This statement is as relevent today as it was in the 1st century BC. This is a common arguement amongst acedemics of who said what when. If they just looked objectively as to what actually happened, when, then society would be able to progress. Events such as the 1931 soveriegn debt crises and it’s cause of the great depression would not be swept under the carpet in such books as those written by Gailbraith. These acedemics have alot to answer for as they constantly promote government as the saviour due to the funding they recieve from who else but the government. Cicero is alluding to the danger that excess in government can create. He could see it then and it is no different now. The bigger the government is the smaller the economy becomes over time. Those words were true in the days of rome and they are true today.
jarrod fitch
:
Unfortunately it is a fictionalised quote from Taylor Caldwell novel, “A Pillar of Iron.”
“There is no substantive evidence that Cicero spoke or wrote these words… In 1965 the best-selling author Taylor Caldwell published the book “A Pillar of Iron” with a subtitle on the cover stating “A novel about Cicero and the Rome he tried to save”. A fictionalized version of the historical figure Cicero was the primary character in the novel.”
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/05/15/cicero-budget/
Roger Montgomery
:
Thanks Jarrod for setting it straight!
John E
:
This is a classic. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Greg McLennan
:
Well, that’s what I would like to see.
I saw a quote a couple of months ago which was to the effect:
“Governments know what they need to do. They just don’t know how to get re-elected after they do it”.
And therein lies the problem.
Brodie Nicholson
:
Do we have any solution’s Greg? Do we hope for a party with the convictions and incentives to do what’s necessary regardless of their re-election chances?
Do we need great salesman politician’s to “sell” the right thing to the public?
Or does the political system need change to ever have any hope of sound fiscal management?
Greg McLennan
:
Ha! In order:
Yes.
No.
No, and,
It won’t, by which I mean that we will continue to be afflicted by a lower house with responsibility but not power and a senate with power but not responsibility.
Result? I fully expect that the debt which started accumulating in 2008 will not be paid off in my lifetime, which could easily last another 40-50 years.