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Federal Government Budget Surplus

The incredible shrinking surplus



A Canadian Press story last Friday talked about the latest fiscal monitor that had been just released by the federal government. According to the document, economic growth has slowed (surprise, surprise) and the amount of the surplus had fallen.

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CP, never shy about editorializing while reporting facts and figures like much of the mainstream media, saw this as a bad thing. The article stated that the surplus for the month of January was a “mere” $600 million; it sounds like the country is almost broke. Describing over half a billion dollars as “mere” is reminiscent of the late US Senator Everett Dirksen who once said, “a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money”. The fiscal monitor also revealed that for the first 10 months of the last fiscal year that ended on Monday, the accumulated surplus was $10 billion, down $600 million from the previous year. Canadian Press noted a bright spot in the fiscal monitor; the cost of servicing the national debt was falling. But the fall in the surplus was blamed on the federal government that had the audacity to cut personal income taxes and the GST. Oh, the humanity! The tenor of the CP article was in line with what many Canadians think; surpluses are good and the bigger the better. While a slowing of the economy that may or may not lead to a recession is not something that is desirable, it does not follow that surpluses are good and larger surpluses are a benefit. There has been a tendency in the past to refer to a deficit as a deficit while extending the term “balanced budget” to those times when surpluses were recorded. Governments all have occasions when they venture into the business realm, mainly because with their socialistic mindsets, they think that they can do a better job than ordinary citizens can. A good example of this is the beleaguered Toronto City Council. With all of their financial woes, the city mothers think that they can sell food on the street better than vendors in the private sector can. Occasionally governments even turn a profit when they engage in business activities that are better handled by the private sector. Provincial sales of liquor comes to mind; unless most Canadians wake up tomorrow morning and decide to go on the wagon, even governments can make a profit selling booze. But examples of where governments actually earn money are few and far between. Governments really don’t “earn” money. The vast majority of their revenues come from what they can take from their citizens, either by way of taxes or charges for providing services. And this country is obsessed with taxes. The GST should be renamed the GSTT; the Goods, Services and Taxes Tax because in Canada we even tax taxes. For example, on the purchase of a litre of gasoline, the GST is applied not just to the retail price of the gasoline but to provincial and other federal taxes. And Canada is one of the few, if not the only country in the world that sees the government issue postage stamps and then add a tax to the cost of the stamp. Taxes are a national obsession. Large surpluses simply mean that the government has confiscated too much money from Canadians. Yet surpluses, especially large ones are seen as a good thing. It is almost funny the way many people see large surpluses as being beneficial and proof of good government instead of what it really is; overcharging the taxpayer by taking money that the government really doesn’t need. Canadians’ attitudes towards surpluses or lack thereof as described in the CP article are perhaps best illustrative of how dependent Canadians are on their government and how many feel that the government is better off with their money than they are.


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Arthur Weinreb -- Bio and Archives

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb


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