Yesterday was the federal government budget. I didn’t bother going through most of it because it’s an election year, so it includes a little something for everybody. Bloomberg called it ‘a laundry list for voters.’ Nothing like getting a little kickback or bribe with our own borrowed money that someday we’ll have to pay back. All that borrowed money being sprinkled around on this International Happiness Day…
What I did notice was the deficit for the coming year. That’s not the debt – it’s just the overspending for the year. Prime Minister Trudeau promised in 2015 that there would be a small deficit of $10 billion for two years and that the budget would be balanced by 2019. It’s now year five and it’s still double that – each year.
The 2016 deficit was 19.7 billion, 2017 19 billion, 2018 14.9 billion and this year it’ll be 19.8 billion and the governments’ own estimates are for 56 billion in the next four years.
The two biggest political financial lies I’ve ever heard were from the former Mayor of Montreal stating that the Olympics (there in 1976) could no more have a deficit than a man could have a baby. It turned out that the cost overruns were 720% and the debt took 30 years to pay off.
The second big lie was from Prime Minister Trudeau in 2015 when he stated that ‘budgets balance themselves.’ Five year later – still waiting for that magic self-correction to happen.
George Boelcke – Money Tools & Rules book – yourmoneybook.com