The Liberals' Big Lie: The Deficit

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thetyee.ca/Views/2005/05/05/LibsBigFib/

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/05/05/2bcdeficitresized.png

There’s no lie like a Big Lie. And as happens so often in politics in this country, the big lies – those repeated over and over again – pay big dividends. This has seldom been more true than the current election and the fact that the BC Liberal’s whole campaign rests on the lie that 1) they inherited a huge deficit from the NDP and 2) that through tax cuts and excellent economic management Gordon Campbell turned things around and saved the province.

Well… it’s a lie. Plain and simple.

I can’t see how somebody can look at the record surplus under the NDP, and then the BC Liberals come along, and there’s a two record deficits in a row (holy shit! borrowing money to give it away!), and still maintain that the Liberals are good for the economy.

The only reason we don’t have a deficit now is because BC received money from the federal government for being a “have-not” province. How embarassing is that? BC’s so poor now that Ontario and Alberta have to send us money.

Thanks Bill Belsey. Only a clown could look at the worse financial management in BC history and call it a success.

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The problem with the Tyee analysis is it ignores the structural deficit the New Democrats had built in to the governments future expenditures. It also ignores the fairly large number of one time benefits the NDP made to their reported expenditures by moving various government expenditures off their books to the accounts of Crown Corps and other government controlled entities, thereby generating surpluses or mitigating deficits. The Tyee tends to be a little simplistic but I guess thats how you tell compelling, short stories.

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The problem with the Tyee analysis is it ignores the structural deficit the New Democrats had built in to the governments future expenditures. It also ignores the fairly large number of one time benefits the NDP made to their reported expenditures by moving various government expenditures off their books to the accounts of Crown Corps and other government controlled entities, thereby generating surpluses or mitigating deficits. The Tyee tends to be a little simplistic but I guess thats how you tell compelling, short stories.

You didn’t read the article, obviously.

“structural deficit” means that if you give away 2 billion dollars, then you’ll be 2 billion dollars in the hole.

The problem the Liberals had was that even their own Liberal Auditor General showed that there was a huge surplus. How could that be? So they gave it away, and then some. They borrowed 2 billion more!