[ballenarosada]

Taking on debt to finance a public good like high speed rail is perfectly reasonable. Privatization isn't a natural outcome of a public corporation running a deficit--it's the result of a political decision to disinvest in that project.

[geofft]

Agree. Government debt is a good thing - just ask fiscal conservative Ronald Reagan, who was the first president since World War II to increase the national debt relative to the GDP. Government is not a company, and judging it by the standards of a company is a mistake. (If anything, it is the dual of a company.)

[slavik81]

Ronald Reagan lowered government revenues with a round of tax cuts and sharply raised government spending. The debt was entirely from increasing the military budget without having taxes to pay for it. I would not describe his presidency as fiscally conservative.