Tony's Absurd Housekeeping

I don't know anything about economics, but it seems to me that Stephen C. Perks is right to say that "borrowing represents one of the more absurd aspects of government policy".

Given that the government seems to feel free to set tax rates at whatever exorbitant level it likes, if it's short of cash, why not a tax hike? Borrowing seems like ridulous politically oportunistic short-termism. Could it be that Tony doesn't want us to know how much of our money he's actually blowing?

Government loans don't seem to come cheap. Perks says:

In 1992 the government raised nearly 11½ per cent of its revenues from borrowing. It spent more on funding this debt in interest payments (7 per cent of total expenditure) than it did on law and order (5½ percent of total expenditure) and nearly as much as on defence (just over 9½ per cent of total expenditure).

The Political Economy of the Christian State (Kuyper Foundation, 2001) p203f citing United Kingdom Accounts, 1993 edition (HMSO)