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Liberal budget a perfect symbol of who they are


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Namely, incompetent and dishonest spendthrifts. The budget increases spending in a wide variety of areas, ignoring their own muttering about being fiscally prudent, then lies about it rather blatantly by pretending they're cutting spending when they're really not. And, of course, there's more billions (tens of billions) for a variety of green energy initiatives. But all of them are filled with rules and regulations about how the money is to be spent, including the pay rate of employees. 

This is another income redistribution budget with zero real effort at increasing productivity or strengthening the economy.

 

The budget points to $15.6-billion in savings, a declining deficit and an easing of the debt burden relative to the economy. Indeed, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland described Tuesday’s budget, her third, as an effort in line with Canada’s “proud tradition of fiscal responsibility.”

That is all a fiscal fantasy: the Liberal budget is built on a cloud of sleight-of-hand projections and the hope that Canadians are suffering from collective amnesia.

To start with, more than half of the savings touted by the Liberals were announced in last year’s budget, with a review to find and reallocate $9-billion in spending through to fiscal 2027-28. This year’s budget merely fills in some details.

And the government’s austerity measures are exceptionally unambitious. Spending on travel and consulting is to decline by 15 per cent – but that is only discretionary spending rather than the entire budget line. And the full savings don’t kick in until two years from now.

Even worse, the second part of the Liberals’ fiscal restraint efforts, a 3-per-cent reduction in “eligible” spending, will deliver savings of exactly $0.00 in the coming fiscal year.

The remainder of the so-called savings come from reallocating $6.38-billion in previously announced budget measures that, somehow, the government was unable to spend. Rather than taking the smallest step toward fiscal prudence – simply not spending that money – the Liberals have instead chosen to roll those funds into future budgets, with the added temerity of touting that as proof of “effective government.”

The Liberals are projecting what looks like a significant cut in real terms in the operating expenses of government, with such expenses dropping from $131.4-billion in the current fiscal year to $119.9-billion three years hence, in fiscal 2026.

Prudence incarnate, yes? No, not if one flips through last year’s budget, when operating expenses for fiscal 2026 were projected at $113.8-billion – or in the budget before that, with forecasted operating expenses of $110.1-billion for that fiscal year. In reality, the government is larding on another $10-billion from what it foresaw just two years ago.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-trudeau-liberals-build-a-budget-on-a-cloud-and-collective-amnesia/

Edited by I am Groot
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42 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Namely, incompetent and dishonest spendthrifts. The budget increases spending in a wide variety of areas, ignoring their own muttering about being fiscally prudent, then lies about it rather blatantly by pretending they're cutting spending when they're really not. And, of course, there's more billions (tens of billions) for a variety of green energy initiatives. But all of them are filled with rules and regulations about how the money is to be spent, including the pay rate of employees. 

This is another income redistribution budget with zero real effort at increasing productivity or strengthening the economy.

 

The budget points to $15.6-billion in savings, a declining deficit and an easing of the debt burden relative to the economy. Indeed, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland described Tuesday’s budget, her third, as an effort in line with Canada’s “proud tradition of fiscal responsibility.”

That is all a fiscal fantasy: the Liberal budget is built on a cloud of sleight-of-hand projections and the hope that Canadians are suffering from collective amnesia.

To start with, more than half of the savings touted by the Liberals were announced in last year’s budget, with a review to find and reallocate $9-billion in spending through to fiscal 2027-28. This year’s budget merely fills in some details.

And the government’s austerity measures are exceptionally unambitious. Spending on travel and consulting is to decline by 15 per cent – but that is only discretionary spending rather than the entire budget line. And the full savings don’t kick in until two years from now.

Even worse, the second part of the Liberals’ fiscal restraint efforts, a 3-per-cent reduction in “eligible” spending, will deliver savings of exactly $0.00 in the coming fiscal year.

The remainder of the so-called savings come from reallocating $6.38-billion in previously announced budget measures that, somehow, the government was unable to spend. Rather than taking the smallest step toward fiscal prudence – simply not spending that money – the Liberals have instead chosen to roll those funds into future budgets, with the added temerity of touting that as proof of “effective government.”

The Liberals are projecting what looks like a significant cut in real terms in the operating expenses of government, with such expenses dropping from $131.4-billion in the current fiscal year to $119.9-billion three years hence, in fiscal 2026.

Prudence incarnate, yes? No, not if one flips through last year’s budget, when operating expenses for fiscal 2026 were projected at $113.8-billion – or in the budget before that, with forecasted operating expenses of $110.1-billion for that fiscal year. In reality, the government is larding on another $10-billion from what it foresaw just two years ago.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-trudeau-liberals-build-a-budget-on-a-cloud-and-collective-amnesia/

Honestly did we expect different? And i notice the usual suspects in the left wing media are out there touting all the goodies while barely mentioning the massive deficit or the fact that debt to gdp will once again be rising for the next few years.

Its a disaster of a budget. And on top of it all that 'anti inflation' spending will actually make inflation worse. So we'll have higher inflation for longer than we needed to, followed by a crash that will really hurt people.

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5 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Its a disaster of a budget. And on top of it all that 'anti inflation' spending will actually make inflation worse. So we'll have higher inflation for longer than we needed to, followed by a crash that will really hurt people.

It's such a waste of money and resources. This country could do so well if the regulatory and tax burdens were lifted off a little, but instead, we get more borrowing, which means an increasing debt servicing cost that will rise to $50 billion in a few years - or sooner if inflation rises. That's just a waste of money. That's almost twice what we spend on defense. and it's only going to get worse.

Edited by I am Groot
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13 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

It's such a waste of money and resources. This country could do so well if the regulatory and tax burdens were lifted off a little, but instead, we get more borrowed, which means an increasing debt servicing cost that will rise to $50 billion in a few years - or sooner if inflation rises. That's just a waste of money. That's almost twice what we spend on defense. and it's only going to get worse.

Yeah. And we're in for a repeat of what we saw in the 80's after the last trudeau did this - the higher debt burden means that even when a sane gov't gets in they won't be able to reduce the tax and expense burden on taxpayers significantly as a result, they'll have to reduce services and do what they can to lower the burden but they'll still be handicapped by a debt that's into the trillions at this point and a debt to gdp that will be more than twice what it was when he took over.  That'll mean stagflation and low efficiency improvements and so on.

That's going to take many years to fix. An entire generation is going to face a reduced standard of living as a result and it was all avoidable.

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The sad part is the average left wing voter does not care what is spent or on what as long as they get there piece of the pie...Justin actions have yet to have any real consequences in terms of higher taxes or cuts to public service, maybe by 2025, it will be conservatives that will bring in policies to bring this back in line, it is them that the public will blame for tough times. 

This is the government that Canadians want, huge government debt means nothing to the average Canadian, it does not keep them up at night or make them wonder can the government pay the bills...This is not the liberals fault they are giving the people what they want...

It is Canadians fault for putting up with it, or not thinking about it as if it will go away, maybe we do need another term of liberal rule before WE wake up...maybe we are not smart enough to see the end state. 

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In this country we never had (forgot would be too good to be true in this ironic imitation) a tradition of responsible democracy. That made the population disconnected and disenfranchised with the political system, and the system, isolated and detached from the reality. Now with the problems in the economy mounting, the governing clique has discovered the power of handout out of the bottomless well (aka, public budget). It works like a charm in the third world societies, Mexico, Venezuela, Phillipines. Let's see it. Better than any abstract democracy rating.

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Very seriously, the next time around the Cons may have the last chance ever to introduce a meaningful, absolutely necessary and long, long overdue change to the political system. After that it'll be all the way (down) to Mexico. In a few cycles we wouldn't even known what "parties" are there.

Third world quasi-democracies simply love FPTP, its their system of choice. Nothing is better for isolating the ruling elites from the citizens and the reality, while maintaining a pretense of "democracy".

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4 hours ago, myata said:

Very seriously, the next time around the Cons may have the last chance ever to introduce a meaningful, absolutely necessary and long, long overdue change to the political system. After that it'll be all the way (down) to Mexico. In a few cycles we wouldn't even known what "parties" are there.

Third world quasi-democracies simply love FPTP, its their system of choice. Nothing is better for isolating the ruling elites from the citizens and the reality, while maintaining a pretense of "democracy".

I swear man, half the time i don't know what you're talking about.  The other half i also don't know what you're talking about.  :)

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You can sum up most of myata's posts in general as "Everything is BAD.  We need to do SOMETHING."

16 hours ago, Army Guy said:

This is the government that Canadians want, huge government debt means nothing to the average Canadian, it does not keep them up at night or make them wonder can the government pay the bills...This is not the liberals fault they are giving the people what they want...

There are lots of people that do care, as evidenced by the utter devastation the Liberals faced in the 2022 Ontario election after 15+ years of provincial Liberal incompetence.  That's the blueprint for taking Justin down, whenever someone wants to gets serious about it. 
 

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1 minute ago, Moonbox said:

You can sum up most of myata's posts in general as "Everything is BAD.  We need to do SOMETHING."

Fair enough :)

1 minute ago, Moonbox said:

There are lots of people that do care, as evidenced by the utter devastation the Liberals faced in the 2022 Ontario election after 15+ years of provincial Liberal incompetence.  That's the blueprint for taking Justin down, whenever someone wants to gets serious about it. 
 

Well sure - like many things in life people don't care much when it doesn't affect them but they do start to care when they see it impacting their lives. If things are going great then who cares about 'deficits'. 

But - when the see their mortgage rates becoming unaffordable, when they see they can't buy the food they want and have to start to eat less or buy cheaper products, when they can't afford to do the things they used to, when they see their taxes going up and have less money every month .... Then they care.

And for sure rubbing justin's track record in everybody's face and NOT letting the conversation be distracted by 'blackface' and 'racism' and 'where's kenney' and all that crap is precisely what PP will need to do to win.

 

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2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Well sure - like many things in life people don't care much when it doesn't affect them but they do start to care when they see it impacting their lives. If things are going great then who cares about 'deficits'. 

Can't argue with that really, but anyone managing a household budget understands that the bill comes in eventually.  All someone needs to do is present a reasonable alternative and the Liberal government will come toppling down. The Conservatives haven't done that yet, and PP hasn't either, though that doesn't mean he can't.  

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

And for sure rubbing justin's track record in everybody's face and NOT letting the conversation be distracted by 'blackface' and 'racism' and 'where's kenney' and all that crap is precisely what PP will need to do to win.

Agreed.  A dose of Harper pragmatism is necessary, and firing up the base isn't the way he's going to win.  

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30 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

You can sum up most of myata's posts in general as "Everything is BAD.  We need to do SOMETHING."

There are lots of people that do care, as evidenced by the utter devastation the Liberals faced in the 2022 Ontario election after 15+ years of provincial Liberal incompetence.  That's the blueprint for taking Justin down, whenever someone wants to gets serious about it. 
 

There is not much evidence of that is there, and i know one should not put much trust into polls but recent polls show the liberals gaining, only 2 points behind the conservatives. and while I'm not a political expert but that does show me that people are not done with Justin yet, that the majority of them do not care enough to force change, they are content with getting little shinny things from the liberals like updating the dental plan, or a small donation towards your yearly food bill...driven not by the liberal government but NDP...

Either they are not smart enough to see the potential impact of this climbing debt, or they really don't care if it collapses, give me more until it hurts... What is needed is perhaps 4 more years of Justin, and his spending spree..Once we start paying enough taxes on these bills then people might wake up...But we are not going to be happy until he burns it all to the ground...

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24 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

The Conservatives haven't done that yet, and PP hasn't either, though that doesn't mean he can't.  

Well -  i don't think scheer did. That was the worst campaign ever.

O'toole,  he started off doing so. He was a 'reasonable' alternative in a general sense but he already looked a little dishonest going from 'true blue' to red tory at the start of the election and then he blew it entirely over the gun issue. He spent three days flip flopping in the worst way over something that should have been a 10 second slam dunk for him.  And after that he lost momentum and people just didn't trust him.

So - it wasn't that he wasn't an 'alternative', he just came across as shady and when the media smelled blood in the water they pounced on him and for the last half of the campaign his numbers just went down.

I think PP has already offered an alternative vision.  And the results are showing that - his reputation is trending up and the CPC is trending up while the libs trend down. The CPC is even stealing  NDP votes.

Of course - he can't TRULY present an alternative till he puts all his cards on the table and shows what his actual plans are.  "get rid of the gatekeepers" is great -but what does it really mean.

And he can't do that until an election. Doing it now would be absolutely insane and political suicide.  But - i think he's laying solid groundwork for that and if he runs a good campaign i think it'll be a question of minority or majority.

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1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Can't argue with that really, but anyone managing a household budget understands that the bill comes in eventually. 

I also understand that I can't just print money out of thin air.  I suppose I'd be up at night worrying if an alien war fleet was in orbit demanding payment or else or if Canada was the only country in this pickle.

The comparison to household debt is silly.  If I need to borrow money in an emergency I find a lender.  Am I to believe Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland ran around the country and planet and actually drummed up $600 billion or whatever it was for COVID and that investors happily invested their own money in the cause?  Am I to further believe these investors who were willing to lend us their money to stave off one disaster will now just as happily plunge us into another disaster unless we pay them back?

Why don't we just kill them?

Or...why not sit down with every other country faced with this dilemma and figure out a deal or is that too much like a big reset?  What I really don't get is staying up at night worrying or even worse feeling guilty as many seem to feel or imply people should feel.  It's a little to surreal to take seriously.

By the way how do you feel about my pie-in-the-sky financing scheme? It's a real pie named Psyche 16, an asteroid worth some 10 quintillion dollars in orbit between Mars and Jupiter.  I mean Earth could sure finance itself out of a lot of pickles given all that cheddar.

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1 hour ago, eyeball said:

Am I to believe Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland ran around the country and planet and actually drummed up $600 billion or whatever it was for COVID and that investors happily invested their own money in the cause? 

Well that is kind of how it works.  Actually they get the bank of canada to do that for them.

Quote

Am I to further believe these investors who were willing to lend us their money to stave off one disaster will now just as happily plunge us into another disaster unless we pay them back?

Yes. That's exactly what happens. To prevent that the bank will buy up their outstanding credit and that's exaclty what the bank has been doing. The problem is that erodes the banks position (the bank lost money recently for the first time in history) and it puts pressure on our dollar. e

And if the gov't doesn't pay back the interest it puts our economic standing with the world economic markets in serious trouble and if they just print money to cover it then it hurts inflation and weakens our dollar.

If you thought there was NO consequence to printing money - that was not accurate.

Quote

Why don't we just kill them?

It does HORRIBLE things to your credit rating.

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

Or...why not sit down with every other country faced with this dilemma and figure out a deal or is that too much like a big reset? 

Oh you mean like Greece did. How'd that work out for them.

You are seriously downplaying a VERY serious problem.  It is FAR more negative than you're suggesting and the impact it will have is massive.

Don't kid yourself. This is serious, pretending it isn't won't make it go away.

 

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This thread encapsulates why I have no respect for the two main parties in the US and their followers. Neither truly want a balanced budget or anything resembling fiscal responsibility. The only difference between the two is where they spend their money errr... extend their credit. I work with politicians directly for 3 months every year. Any doubt as to their true motives gets washed away during those times. 

 

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29 minutes ago, impartialobserver said:

This thread encapsulates why I have no respect for the two main parties in the US and their followers. Neither truly want a balanced budget or anything resembling fiscal responsibility. The only difference between the two is where they spend their money errr... extend their credit. I work with politicians directly for 3 months every year. Any doubt as to their true motives gets washed away during those times. 

 

Sure.  And it's weird because there was a time when at least republicans thought a balanced budget was a good idea. But even trump had no interest in even moving in that direction.

america has the advantage currently of being an anchor or reserve currency. That means debt is a little less destructive for them than it is for someone like us. BUT - there are limits and they are currently pushing it.

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19 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Sure.  And it's weird because there was a time when at least republicans thought a balanced budget was a good idea. But even trump had no interest in even moving in that direction.

america has the advantage currently of being an anchor or reserve currency. That means debt is a little less destructive for them than it is for someone like us. BUT - there are limits and they are currently pushing it.

No matter who it is.. when you have financial trouble, there are two ways to resolve it. Increase revenue or decrease spending. One has vastly more control over the second and therefore it should be the easier of the two routes. However, in federal governments... they almost always opt for the first. I do not know about Canada but as for the US.. two things could drastically reduce the budget. First, contribute less to the public employee retirement. Second, do away with use-it-or-lose-it grant funding. I could ramble for pages but find that keeping it short keeps the reader from falling asleep.

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