Interestingly in Saskatchewan the NDP used to argue for just that and they were very successful for many years.  Tommy Douglas, the poster child for the NDP, was a staunch believer in fiscal responsibility and the notion that you shouldn't introduce new social programs that the government couldn't afford to pay for.  He was not necessarily opposed to running deficits during fiscal downturns, he absolutely believed that budgets needed to be balanced over the long term.

As a result the Saskatchewan NDP have a great record of balanced budgets.

The NDP in every other jurisdiction?  Not so much.  Actually if you take the Saskatchewan NDP and the Manitoba NDP under Gary Doer out of the picture all other NDP governments in Canada have been fiscal disaster cases.  B.C., Manitoba (other than Doer), Ontario, Nova Scotia and now Alberta have all had NDP governments that delivered non-stop deficits and mountains of debt.