I... usually hear this sentence sarcastically... but here it really seems as if the author isn't using it as such. I dunno, if you're a proponent of Starve The Beast [0], this is a consistent belief I suppose.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

They probably subscribe to an ideology like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

The author is writing tongue-in-cheek.