Sometimes, the funniest comments are dead serious. Take the reported musings from unnamed Opposition MPs in Ottawa who apparently whispered to a reporter that they are afraid Prime Minister Stephen Harper will use the current global financial crisis to "carry out ideologically driven spending cuts."

That's right up there with a weekend editorial piece by former Liberal finance minister and current MP Ralph Goodale criticizing Harper for ruining the Canadian economy at least in part because he "increased federal government spending to an unprecedented level."

A Liberal accusing anybody of overspending. Now there's a good one, particularly when you consider that during 2004-05 alone, Goodale, as finance minister, increased government spending by a whopping 15 percent.

As for those much-feared "ideologically driven" spending cuts, the example pointed to most often by those who believe in profligate spending is the congenitally leftleaning CBC. But every other media organization in the country - newspapers, television stations, and radio outlets - have all had to cut back, some rather seriously, because of the current economic conditions (which, as anybody who isn't an opposition MP in Ottawa knows, had something to do with conditions outside of our nation's capitol).

So why should the CBC, which, unlike all the other media outlets, gets close to $1 billion a year from taxpayers - whether they watch the CBC or not - be exempt from the economic realities? It's just total facile nonsense.

That having been said, however, your correspondent only wishes that the "fears" of cost cutting by Harper - whether for ideological purposes or not - actually were about to come true. Unfortunately, despite all his tough talk about keeping his spending house in order, Harper hasn't been any better than the Liberals when it comes to following through on the tough talk. In some ways, he's been worse.

If there is one thing we should have learned during the disastrous premiership of Bob Rae, back in the days when he led the provincial NDP, is it that governments should not try to spend their way - using your money - out of recessions. That's what Rae tried to do and it only made matters much worse. We're still recovering from his spending spree.

But now comes news from Harper that, having attended various meetings with other world leaders, he too thinks the time has come to throw money at the problem. The fact is, he's been doing that since he became prime minister and, as we all know, it hasn't exactly alleviated the problems.

Yes, we are facing an unusual set of circumstances thanks to the widespread collapse of money markets, but the best way to deal with hard times - and good times, for that matter - is to give individuals, not bureaucrats, more of their own money to spend.

People who love higher and higher taxes say that Harper's cut on the GST by two points is a big part of the problem. No, it's not. The fact is, whenever governments actually cut real taxes to real people, government revenue goes up, not down.

If that seems counterintuitive, the answer to the riddle is quite simple. As we said above, if you give people more money to spend, they'll spend it. They'll buy things. Which means people have to make the things they want to buy. And so on.

The problem Harper's government has had - even before the current economic crisis - is not a lack of revenue, it's a lack of spending controls.

Just like the Liberals before them - when the aforementioned Goodale was furiously writing cheques - the first two budgets under Harper's government increased the size of the federal government by an unsustainable 14.8 percent.

Everybody loves to point to outgoing U.S. President George Bush for helping to create the problem by overspending - U.S. government spending has increased by 59 percent this decade - but Ottawa isn't far behind. During the same period, our spending jumped 54 percent, and our prime ministers have much more direct control over federal spending than U.S. presidents have. They have to deal with Congress and the Senate.

Our leaders can do pretty well what they want, with just minor restraints on their intentions.

So to suggest that Harper has this "hidden agenda" to wield his fabled ideological rapier - which he obviously put away the moment he won his first minority - and cut spending instead of continuing to spend more than we can afford, is completely and utterly absurd, so ridiculous that it actually is a knee-slapper to anybody who gives it more than a moment's thought. I wish he would cut spending. But, alas, there is no chance. No chance at all.

Which is why we're going from bad to worse.