The Liberals' Legacy

[Thorin]

I don't remember how, but I stumbled across a Government of Canada website that showed the federal debt in the 1996-1997 fiscal year (http://www.fin.gc.ca/update97/factDEBT-E.html - first sentence after "How big is the debt?").  It stood at $583,000,000,000 (583 billion).  I remember that, because it was the year my son was born and the year I decided to get back to school to get into higher-paying work.  So then I decided to find out what the forecasted federal debt is for the 2006-2007 year (http://www.fin.gc.ca/budget06/bp/bpc1e.htm - scroll down to Table 1.1 near the bottom).  They are predicting it to be $483,400,000,000 (483.4 billion).  Lets round that off and say, "Hooray!  We paid off a hundred billion dollars of debt in ten years!".

As much as I complained about the Liberals' overspending and wasting of taxpayers' money, they *did* manage to cut a big chunk out of the federal debt.  I voted non-Liberal because the Liberals were so corrupt they needed to be removed from government (I would've liked to see them get reduced to 1 seat, like the Tories were so long ago), but it is nonetheless an accomplishment I have to commend them for.

Now lets hope Harper keeps going on the debt reduction - he claims his government will pay down $3,000,000,000 (3 billion) every year, or more if there are surpluses.  The 100 billion reduction in debt actually saves our federal government 10 billion a year in interest costs.  Just think, they could have five or six gun registry scandals, and still have more money than they did in 96/97!

Here's one to make ya think: Harper and the Conservatives are all about fiscal responsibility and paying off the debt as quickly as possible, yet he only plans to pay 3 billion a year against the debt while the Liberals, who supposedly tax us to death and then spend all the money, managed to pay 10 billion a year against that same debt.

And don't be convinced that the GST reduction will help the average income earner - to pay for the reduction in GST we're actually getting an increase in the tax rate in the lowest tax bracket.  It was 16% last year, the Liberals put forth legislation to change it to 15% for this year, it didn't pass before the election but taxes withheld on our cheques were already being calculated as 15%, then the Conservatives changed the rate to 15.5% starting July 1st.  So paycheques after July 1st will have a little more tax withheld than paycheques before.  Not a lot, mind you, but still.  Give us a GST rate cut but finance it with an income tax rate increase?