To the editor

Now is the time to borrow and spend!

Given the present conditions of high unemployment, very low interest rates on most term loans, and the prospect of a vaccine that will provide protection from Covid in the coming year, we need to be taking steps at all levels and segments of the economy to promote economic recovery.

The federal government should be borrowing to carry out much needed infrastructure projects and many other programs; state and local governments should be borrowing to initiate or complete projects that will provide high levels of future benefits for their communities.

These should not be frivolous expenditures on projects that provide little future value, but well-planned and designed projects of significant value. Private businesses and citizens should also be looking for good investments that they can make now to promote recovery while they can borrow at low interest rates. Mortgage, refinancing and home equity loan rates are low, but clearly credit card rates are not and such borrowings should be avoided as much as possible.

The new school building in Westport is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing. It has moved ahead throughout the Covid crisis providing employment now and also the facilities to support improved education in the future. This will not only benefit our children but also raise future property values that will help service the low interest debt now being incurred to implement this project.

Proposed projects under the Integrated Water Resource Management Plan such as extending new sewer lines down Route 6 from Fall River to Route 88 and installing satellite nitrogen reducing wastewater treatment systems in selected neighborhoods are good examples of what the town should be doing this coming year. They will not only generate employment but also raise future property values that will help pay the costs of the current low-cost financing.

The recent decision by the town to raise the interest rate on Community Septic Management Program loans to finance the upgrading of septic systems that use nitrogen reducing technologies is clearly a move in the wrong direction and should be reversed. Such septic improvements that ultimately benefit the whole community should be encouraged by receiving funding at preferential interest rates.

At the federal and state levels we should support borrowing in the short run to provide relief and maintain essential services and, in the longer run, to carry out good projects. Warnings by “deficit hawks” to limit government borrowing at this time for fear of future inflation should be ignored until the economy has recovered, unemployment is greatly reduced, and prices show signs of upward pressure.

David C. Cole

Westport Point