It is always worth remembering that the growing mountain of Federal debt is not being caused by stimulus spending. Oh, sure, it makes for some of it, but it doesn't explain why we will have a deficit continuing to add to the debt pile until well past 2015 -- if Jim Flaherty is to be believed (um, no).
No, we have a systemic deficit because Harper slashed taxes while increasing spending before the recession came.
Fiscal imprudence.
Remember, up until he shat on democracy and prorogued Parliament, Harper claimed Canada's fundamentals were strong and that we didn't need to do any stimulus spending. He actually said to have foreseen the problem and taken steps with the ill-advised GST cuts to (he argued) stimulate the economy. Given that the cuts were in the Conservative's platform years earlier, Harper's ability to prognosticate on economic ebbs and flows should be legendary. If he's that good, he should have quit politics and made a fortune shorting stocks.
Then again, remember him recommending people buy stocks last election? Just before the market spiral?
Harper so pared back the budget surplus the Liberals left us, he actually forced us into a deficit position.
And now, the plan by the Conservatives is to increase the EI surplus starting in 2011, with all the moral hazard of penalizing employment it creates. Didn't these Conservatives used to justifiably whine against using the EI funds like this when the Liberals were in power?
1 comment:
And no one will do anything untill the GST goes back up again.
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