Canadian Budget
A new Canadian budget was unveiled yesterday, and it is more notable for what it didn't do than for what it did do. It didn't announce hordes of new spending on pet projects for the Liberal party. I guess the sponsorship scandal is hitting the Liberals hard enough that they want to demonstrate fiscal prudence.
I was rather disappointed by the reactions to the budget. Please understand, I'm a capital "C" Conservative. But I didn't see too much wrong with the budget. There is a small amount of new spending, but it is in areas of interest to all Canadians. No, they didn't dip into debt in order to ladle out more goodies to everyone, but that's how everyone has to live (you can't keep increasing your debt forever). The Conservative Finance Critic was interviewed and asked what he thought of the budget. I'm not sure what he thought of this budget because he spent all of his time talking about past Liberal budgets and the sponsorship scandal. The provincial premiers basically said, "Thanks for the $2 billion, but we want more." That's because the Federal government cut expenses in the 1990's to they have a surplus now, but the provincial governments (except Alberta) have not done the same. Hence it's the Federal government's fault, by some twisted logic. As expected, the ultimate denial of reality comes from New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton. He said of this budget, "It's like paying down the mortgage faster when you've got a leaky roof, a sick grandmother and your child is trying to go to university". Our national debt is $500 billion. As near as I can see, $2 billion is being used to pay down the debt this year. At that rate, the Canadian "mortgage" will be paid off in only 250 years. But to Jack Layton, I guess that's an accelerated payment plan.
The fact is, this is a surprisingly balanced and prudent budget, particularly for a government going into an election. My issue is not with this budget, but with the scary liberal policies a Liberal government will push if elected.
I was rather disappointed by the reactions to the budget. Please understand, I'm a capital "C" Conservative. But I didn't see too much wrong with the budget. There is a small amount of new spending, but it is in areas of interest to all Canadians. No, they didn't dip into debt in order to ladle out more goodies to everyone, but that's how everyone has to live (you can't keep increasing your debt forever). The Conservative Finance Critic was interviewed and asked what he thought of the budget. I'm not sure what he thought of this budget because he spent all of his time talking about past Liberal budgets and the sponsorship scandal. The provincial premiers basically said, "Thanks for the $2 billion, but we want more." That's because the Federal government cut expenses in the 1990's to they have a surplus now, but the provincial governments (except Alberta) have not done the same. Hence it's the Federal government's fault, by some twisted logic. As expected, the ultimate denial of reality comes from New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton. He said of this budget, "It's like paying down the mortgage faster when you've got a leaky roof, a sick grandmother and your child is trying to go to university". Our national debt is $500 billion. As near as I can see, $2 billion is being used to pay down the debt this year. At that rate, the Canadian "mortgage" will be paid off in only 250 years. But to Jack Layton, I guess that's an accelerated payment plan.
The fact is, this is a surprisingly balanced and prudent budget, particularly for a government going into an election. My issue is not with this budget, but with the scary liberal policies a Liberal government will push if elected.
posted by Shawn Abigail at 6:01 a.m.
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