alleged in the the mainstream textbooks. The latter provide the basis of Alesina's alleged theoretical causation. They have no application to the real world. But, further, if they did have such an understanding they would quickly scoff at Alesina and point out that governments do not have to raise taxes to "pay back deficits". There is very little historical evidence to support the fact that governments behave like that. Governments rarely pay down outstanding debt and when they try that by running surpluses a recession soon follows pushing them back into deficit. Our enlightened households would tell Alesina that the reality -- rehearsed countless times in history -- is that the reversal of the automatic stabilisers as growth emerges reduces the budget deficits and arrests the rise in the public debt to GDP ratio. Even less enlightened households, particularly the Japanese, will know that Japan has experienced rising budget deficits (as a per cent of GDP), has the largest stock of public debt when compared to GDP, and has maintained low interest rates for two decades. When the government tried cutting the deficit in 1997 -- using Alesina's logic -- the Japanese economy tanked. A renewed expansion of net public spending provided the growth spurt that they enjoyed in early 2000s. Second, in the examples used by Alesina to make his case household and corporate debt levels were nothing like they are today. The imperative to save by households is now well embedded in their psyche and that better explains