focus on today
资深人士
- 注册
- 2009-02-03
- 消息
- 4,668
- 荣誉分数
- 668
- 声望点数
- 223
(continued)
So why do the deficit spending?
During the Great Recession when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were running up record deficits, it was driven in part by necessity. Unemployment had spiked to unbelievable levels in many regions of the country. One finance official told me at the time that Employment Insurance was sending out more than $5 billion a month than it was taking in.
That money came from general revenues and the extra spending was backed by all parties.
Today there is no recession and the deficit spending has not only continued, it is increasing. Deficits eventually become government debt and, believe it or not, that does cost us.
According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the federal debt currently sits at $695 billion and goes up by $2.2 million an hour or $54 million a day. Each one of us — every man, woman and child — is in the hock to the tune of $18,682.
Right now, just paying the interest on the debt costs us $26.2 billion a year. That’s according to the latest budget put out by the Trudeau Liberals earlier this year. That money doesn’t pay down a single penny of the debt, it just pays the interest on the debt.
It’s like paying just the interest or minimum payment on your credit card, the total that you owe keeps growing.
According to Trudeau’s own numbers, we are spending more on paying the interest on the debt than we do on the military — $4 billion more to be exact. Think about that, without the debt we could more than double military spending without raising taxes a single penny.
Or we could more than double the Canada Child Benefit. The program that sends hundreds of dollars per month to parents is expected to cost us a total of $24.3 billion this fiscal year, or about $2 billion less than we spend to service the debt.
And those pesky equalization payments that cause so much national angst as money is shuffled from one part of the country to another — mainly Quebec — costs just $19.8 billion.
Most programs and departments could be funded many times over if we were not paying more than $2 billion a month on interest on the debt.
Trudeau’s plan to spend more than $94 billion through increased deficits over the next four years will only drive up that cost to us. It’s a reckless and threatens the very social programs he claims to value and that Canadians rely on.
The Liberals say they want to avoid austerity yet their plan will certainly drive us towards that and the cuts that follow.
It’s time to stop the deficit spending.
blilley@postmedia.com
So why do the deficit spending?
During the Great Recession when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were running up record deficits, it was driven in part by necessity. Unemployment had spiked to unbelievable levels in many regions of the country. One finance official told me at the time that Employment Insurance was sending out more than $5 billion a month than it was taking in.
That money came from general revenues and the extra spending was backed by all parties.
Today there is no recession and the deficit spending has not only continued, it is increasing. Deficits eventually become government debt and, believe it or not, that does cost us.
According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the federal debt currently sits at $695 billion and goes up by $2.2 million an hour or $54 million a day. Each one of us — every man, woman and child — is in the hock to the tune of $18,682.
Right now, just paying the interest on the debt costs us $26.2 billion a year. That’s according to the latest budget put out by the Trudeau Liberals earlier this year. That money doesn’t pay down a single penny of the debt, it just pays the interest on the debt.
It’s like paying just the interest or minimum payment on your credit card, the total that you owe keeps growing.
According to Trudeau’s own numbers, we are spending more on paying the interest on the debt than we do on the military — $4 billion more to be exact. Think about that, without the debt we could more than double military spending without raising taxes a single penny.
Or we could more than double the Canada Child Benefit. The program that sends hundreds of dollars per month to parents is expected to cost us a total of $24.3 billion this fiscal year, or about $2 billion less than we spend to service the debt.
And those pesky equalization payments that cause so much national angst as money is shuffled from one part of the country to another — mainly Quebec — costs just $19.8 billion.
Most programs and departments could be funded many times over if we were not paying more than $2 billion a month on interest on the debt.
Trudeau’s plan to spend more than $94 billion through increased deficits over the next four years will only drive up that cost to us. It’s a reckless and threatens the very social programs he claims to value and that Canadians rely on.
The Liberals say they want to avoid austerity yet their plan will certainly drive us towards that and the cuts that follow.
It’s time to stop the deficit spending.
blilley@postmedia.com
