Jan 23 2009
Deficits Aplenty
Now that the government is being coerced into being a little more honest with its numbers, the surpluses to moderate surpluses to small deficits to bigger deficits transformation is complete. I’m by no means an economist or a psychic, nor did I have access to to the books but I was pretty certain this was the direction we were headed quite some time ago.
“People aren’t concerned about the balance sheet of the government,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “They are concerned about their jobs.”
This is one of those few times where I have to completely agree with what our PM says. To be honest, I’ve never really understood the concept of paying down the debt anyway. I mean, it seems to me that collectively the so called “developed” countries all owe more than you or I can even imagine, and the likelihood of our countries paying off these debts in our lifetime is non-existent.
Hey, surpluses are good even though they mean that the government collected way more of our money than they spent in a given year. I’m really crappy at managing my own money, so I can’t imagine that the government can use it less wisely than I do.
Right now the “prediction” is that Canada will run a deficit of 64 billion over the next two years. This might seem like peanuts to what the U.S. is facing, but it’s still a far cry from what they were telling us only months ago (oddly enough leading up to the election…hmmm). What will the reality be? Only time will tell, but if history is any past indicator, we might be wishing the current numbers are as bad as it gets.
