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Ontario’s Liberals will spend billions more dollars than they planned a year ago, their new budget says, running deficits and expanding the provincial government’s ambitions in our lives dramatically.
This isn’t accidental, or something the government’s being forced into. The Liberals have delivered an election budget that’ll give voters a clear distinction between the Kathleen Wynne Liberals and Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives when we all cast ballots in June.
“We are making a choice,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa told the legislature. “We are committing to more support for social and developmental services, more supports for mental health and health care programs and more supports for students. We are choosing to put our strengthened fiscal position to work to address the priorities of the people of Ontario.”
Specifically, the government will be putting $20.3 billion more to work over three years, basically all of it borrowed.
The government’s going to run a $6.7-billion deficit this year and keep spending more than it takes in until at least 2025. Seven more years. Assuming the Liberals are re-elected.
The government’s going to take in $2 billion more this year than it anticipated, but spend $9 billion more. The pattern continues for three more years before the deficit starts shrinking, during what the budget calls a “recovery plan” period that starts in 2021.
The knock on Liberals at large is that they want as much government as we can afford. That’s been Kathleen Wynne’s philosophy and it’s what this budget gives us: More borrowing, more debt, and more stuff for the people from the public treasury.
All of this will definitely do a lot of people some good. The spending includes the already-announced plans for free child care for pre-schoolers ($2.2 billion) and drug coverage for seniors ($1 billion). But also $1.8 billion for better services for people with development disabilities such as autism, $1.2 billion for better mental health and addiction treatment, $750 million for more home health care, and $2.3 billion “to embark on a multi-year plan to reform income security.”
That last thing isn’t terribly well explained in the budget, but it includes three-per-cent hikes to welfare rates each year for the next three.
There’s also a small additional public insurance plan for drug and dental costs, aimed at people who have jobs but no workplace insurance coverage — starting in 2019, with benefits capped at $400 for singles, $600 for couples, and $50 for kids.
These are substantially all permanent increases in the size of the government. These aren’t single investments — building things like Ottawa’s light-rail system or wider highways, new schools or hospitals — but permanent commitments to new and enlarged social programs.
None of this was in the plans as recently as a year ago.
Ontario’s budget watchdog office warned that the balanced budget in 2017 was a carefully engineered one-off, not something the government could easily repeat. Oh, no, no, Sousa said repeatedly, we’ve done the hard work to produce balanced budgets as far as the eye can see.
The outlook in the 2017 budget said so explicitly, projecting balanced budgets this year and next.
“We slayed the deficit, balanced the books, and are projecting a $600-million surplus,” Sousa boasted to the legislature Wednesday. And now that’s over with.
Deficits aren’t inherently bad. As long as the economy keeps growing, the government can keep borrowing a little bit each year indefinitely without getting into fiscal trouble. As long as the economy keeps growing.
But 2025 will be 17 years after the Great Recession threw government finances everywhere for a dizzying loop. Statistically, it’s very likely that there’ll be another recession between now and then, messing the government’s plans again.
The Progressive Conservative response to the budget was sort of confused.
Related
“Kathleen Wynne is writing a lot of cheques,” Tory leader Doug Ford said. “She is making big promises with your tax dollars. I’ve looked at the finances, and her cheques are going to bounce. You and your families will be stuck with the bill for Wynne’s election promises.”
“If the Liberals were to win the next election, everything included in this budget will be added to an already exhaustive list of broken promises,” PC finance critic Vic Fedeli added.
Well, look, the Liberals can be reckless and run crazy deficits or they can promise all this stuff and not deliver, but they can’t do both at the same time.
The Tories will be fighting an election in much the same ground as they did in 2014, when Wynne soundly beat Tim Hudak and his cuts-cuts-cuts message, and they’ll need to pick a tactic.
The New Democrats, meanwhile, criticized the Liberals for doing too little.
“It’s clear that Kathleen Wynne believes it’s more important for her to look good than for people to feel good,” leader Andrea Horwath said. “This is why people are disappointed. This is why people are cynical about politics. And this is why Ontarians are looking forward to electing a new premier in June.”
She picked out the drug-and-dental plan as piddling and hospital funding as particularly inadequate. This is familiar ground for the New Democrats, who fought the 2014 campaign on pocketbook issues but were never really comfortable doing it.
Many of the Liberals’ promises will be welcome, especially considering the waiting lists for all sorts of health care. If you’ve got a kid with mental-health challenges or a parent who’s spending more and more time in emergency rooms, the provincial deficit is a pretty abstract problem.
Whether more of us are worried about those problems or about our tax bills will dictate the results of the election campaign to come.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
This isn’t accidental, or something the government’s being forced into. The Liberals have delivered an election budget that’ll give voters a clear distinction between the Kathleen Wynne Liberals and Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives when we all cast ballots in June.
“We are making a choice,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa told the legislature. “We are committing to more support for social and developmental services, more supports for mental health and health care programs and more supports for students. We are choosing to put our strengthened fiscal position to work to address the priorities of the people of Ontario.”
Specifically, the government will be putting $20.3 billion more to work over three years, basically all of it borrowed.
The government’s going to run a $6.7-billion deficit this year and keep spending more than it takes in until at least 2025. Seven more years. Assuming the Liberals are re-elected.
The government’s going to take in $2 billion more this year than it anticipated, but spend $9 billion more. The pattern continues for three more years before the deficit starts shrinking, during what the budget calls a “recovery plan” period that starts in 2021.
The knock on Liberals at large is that they want as much government as we can afford. That’s been Kathleen Wynne’s philosophy and it’s what this budget gives us: More borrowing, more debt, and more stuff for the people from the public treasury.
All of this will definitely do a lot of people some good. The spending includes the already-announced plans for free child care for pre-schoolers ($2.2 billion) and drug coverage for seniors ($1 billion). But also $1.8 billion for better services for people with development disabilities such as autism, $1.2 billion for better mental health and addiction treatment, $750 million for more home health care, and $2.3 billion “to embark on a multi-year plan to reform income security.”
That last thing isn’t terribly well explained in the budget, but it includes three-per-cent hikes to welfare rates each year for the next three.
There’s also a small additional public insurance plan for drug and dental costs, aimed at people who have jobs but no workplace insurance coverage — starting in 2019, with benefits capped at $400 for singles, $600 for couples, and $50 for kids.
These are substantially all permanent increases in the size of the government. These aren’t single investments — building things like Ottawa’s light-rail system or wider highways, new schools or hospitals — but permanent commitments to new and enlarged social programs.
None of this was in the plans as recently as a year ago.
Ontario’s budget watchdog office warned that the balanced budget in 2017 was a carefully engineered one-off, not something the government could easily repeat. Oh, no, no, Sousa said repeatedly, we’ve done the hard work to produce balanced budgets as far as the eye can see.
The outlook in the 2017 budget said so explicitly, projecting balanced budgets this year and next.
“We slayed the deficit, balanced the books, and are projecting a $600-million surplus,” Sousa boasted to the legislature Wednesday. And now that’s over with.
Deficits aren’t inherently bad. As long as the economy keeps growing, the government can keep borrowing a little bit each year indefinitely without getting into fiscal trouble. As long as the economy keeps growing.
But 2025 will be 17 years after the Great Recession threw government finances everywhere for a dizzying loop. Statistically, it’s very likely that there’ll be another recession between now and then, messing the government’s plans again.
The Progressive Conservative response to the budget was sort of confused.
Related
- Editorial: La-La-Liberal-Land budget promises just about everything
- Denley: Ontario Liberals are spending wildly while suffering a deficit of sincerity
“Kathleen Wynne is writing a lot of cheques,” Tory leader Doug Ford said. “She is making big promises with your tax dollars. I’ve looked at the finances, and her cheques are going to bounce. You and your families will be stuck with the bill for Wynne’s election promises.”
“If the Liberals were to win the next election, everything included in this budget will be added to an already exhaustive list of broken promises,” PC finance critic Vic Fedeli added.
Well, look, the Liberals can be reckless and run crazy deficits or they can promise all this stuff and not deliver, but they can’t do both at the same time.
The Tories will be fighting an election in much the same ground as they did in 2014, when Wynne soundly beat Tim Hudak and his cuts-cuts-cuts message, and they’ll need to pick a tactic.
The New Democrats, meanwhile, criticized the Liberals for doing too little.
“It’s clear that Kathleen Wynne believes it’s more important for her to look good than for people to feel good,” leader Andrea Horwath said. “This is why people are disappointed. This is why people are cynical about politics. And this is why Ontarians are looking forward to electing a new premier in June.”
She picked out the drug-and-dental plan as piddling and hospital funding as particularly inadequate. This is familiar ground for the New Democrats, who fought the 2014 campaign on pocketbook issues but were never really comfortable doing it.
Many of the Liberals’ promises will be welcome, especially considering the waiting lists for all sorts of health care. If you’ve got a kid with mental-health challenges or a parent who’s spending more and more time in emergency rooms, the provincial deficit is a pretty abstract problem.
Whether more of us are worried about those problems or about our tax bills will dictate the results of the election campaign to come.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
