The federal government announced plans to cut total spending for just the second time in 12 years, as part of this week’s budget.
However, the meagre $1.8-billion cut does little to stop the expansion of a bloated system under the big-government Conservatives.
Yes, many of the stimulus program expenses are coming to an end, but that didn’t stop the government from announcing another $7.6 billion in new spending (over six years).
These so-called Conservatives are forecasting a $29.6- billion deficit this year, as well as another three years of deficits to follow. Total debt will rise to $586 billion this year, according to the budget.
The last time the Conservatives managed to cut total spending was back in 2005-06, when it dropped by $1.5 billion. However, from 2006-07 to 2010-2011, spending increased by 20.7 per cent, from $222.2 billion to a whopping $280.5 billion.
This kind of spending is not sustainable. These kind of deficits should disgust every Canadian who has children, who will be forced to ultimately pay for this government’s Keynesian ideology.
But this is what we’re stuck with. Canada’s opposition parties have a record of demanding even more spending. And, if it wasn’t for the Conservatives, we likely would have been stuck with an ill-conceived carbon tax following the last federal election. That carbon tax would have seriously wounded the one industry that continues to pay the bills - the oilsands.
As long as the Opposition refuses to come back to economic reality, halt its endless attacks on industry and offer a fiscally-conservative alternative, we will have no option to the big-government Conservatives.
It’s a sad state of affairs.
