Assembly last Friday indicates just how well Bermuda's finances have been run.

Successive finance ministers have followed the lead set by Sir David Gibbons and have kept a tight grip on spending while borrowing only when it was absolutely necessary. As a result, Bermuda's economy was in good shape when the recession came. Yes, we have had problems but those problems are nothing like what other countries and other people suffered.

The American people face huge deficits which have to be dealt with and they are unwilling to face higher taxes to meet those deficits. The American people are calling for cuts in spending and not higher taxes and they may well be correct.

It seems that the American people want their economy to operate like a family budget. If you cannot afford it, you cannot have it. If you want it bad enough, you have to save up for it. In very many ways Bermuda has operated its economy like that since the Second World War.

Bermuda cut spending as soon as it was clear that we were facing a recession and that Bermudians were in for some tough times. We have to remember that when Government cut back it was accused by the hierarchy of the Bermuda Industrial Union and its friends in the PLP of creating the recession to harm Bermudians.

We well remember the howls of complaint from the PLP and the BIU when Dr. Saul introduced his first budget and it turned out to be tough. Yet how much better off the United States would be if they had faced constraints before they were swamped by the problem.

It would have been very easy in the free spending 1980s for Bermuda to have fallen into a trap and assumed that the tourist flow and the cash flow would go on forever. The United States did that. It bought the good life at the expense of its basic economy and now faces an unheard of deficit. It borrowed against its future and now the people have to pay.

Careful finance ministers prevented Bermuda from doing that. Often there were complaints, especially when, in the good years, finance ministers said Bermuda could not afford various luxuries. Now we know just how smart that was.

People often think Government should give them more because they somehow think Government pays. The fact is that the people always pay. There were people in Bermuda who demanded more and more and who complained loudly when Government did not instantly spend to give it to them. Thankfully, sense prevailed.

Government has been careful about Bermuda's cash. When the recession came, Bermuda's people did not have a crushing debt and huge interest payments we could not meet. That would have made the recession much worse for us.

The people of the Bahamas are suffering because of the huge debts run up by Sir Lynden Pindling and his Government. The economy of the Bahamas is in bad shape because Sir Lynder and his Government abused the economy.

We can be thankful that Bermuda and the Bermudian economy are envied by many countries.