Editorial Board
Italian Politicians Need to Get Real
With elections approaching, the parties are debating how to spend money that isn't there.
Can this really be happening?
Photographer: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
Italy's politicians aren't well-known for sober realism, but the campaigns ahead of Italy's elections on March 4 are something new. The political parties are outbidding each other with the most lavish pledges -- ranging from Silvio Berlusconi's flat tax to the Five Star Movement's "citizens' income" -- while offering no credible explanations of how to pay for them.
This kind of fiscal daydreaming is especially reckless in Italy, where sovereign debt has topped 130 percent of national income. The country's leaders should be arguing about how to bring this debt under control, not promising to make it bigger still.