The 2019 federal budget, like all recent federal budgets, is a tribute to the pleasures of endless economic growth.
Indeed, so steady has the revenue-gusher been — no government has ever had as much money to play with, measured in inflation-adjusted dollars per citizen — that the Liberals have been obliged to perform quite heroic feats of spending just to keep pace. Though real per capita spending is at all-time record levels, the deficit remains stubbornly below one per cent of GDP — hardly a deficit at all, really.
Remember infrastructure? That was supposed to differentiate the new Liberal deficit spending from the old Liberal deficit spending. It wasn’t about pork-barrel politics, or short-run economic fixes. It was about making strategic investments that would increase productivity for the long run. Only it hasn’t quite worked out that way, has it?
The quantity of spending isn’t so much the issue as the quality. It isn’t that we can’t afford it: it’s that, in the rush to get all that spending out the door, little thought appears to have been given to whether the money is being spent in the best way, or whether it should be spent at all. The training chapter notes, with evident satisfaction, that the government now spends close to $7.5 billion a year on skill development “across more than 100 distinct programs.” Given the country’s acute and growing skills shortages, some questions might be asked about their efficacy. Some, but not too many: a review of skills programming provided “an opportunity to reflect on past successes and determine where more can be done.
Where would my household be if I ran a deficit every year
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