Liberals committed to never-ending deficits

Tuesday’s fall economic statement by Finance Minister Bill Morneau demonstrates why nothing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says in the 2019 federal election campaign about Canada’s debt and deficits can be trusted.

Contrary to every message Trudeau delivered both before and during the 2015 election, Morneau laid out the real Liberal agenda going forward, which, to use his phrase, is “doubling down” on permanent deficits and wanton spending.

Trudeau, who infamously said budgets balance themselves and that you grow the economy from the heart outward, is condemning future generations of Canadians to deal with the economic mess he’s locking into place once our economy slows down, as it inevitably will.

Indeed, despite Morneau boasting the Canadian economy is booming — the ideal time to pay down debt without unduly punishing taxpayers — Trudeau has committed us to never-ending deficits and debt.

That’s outrageous given that leading up to and during the early part of at the 2015 election campaign, Trudeau repeatedly pledged a Liberal government would run balanced budgets and hypocritically blasted the Harper Conservatives for running deficits, even though the Liberals demanded them in the wake of the 2008 global recession.

Then, in mid-campaign, Trudeau reversed himself, calling for “modest” deficits.

Morneau’s fall economic statement exposes those numbers as a fabrication.

With the economy booming, according to Morneau, Trudeau now has a 2016-17 deficit of $17.8 billion, 80 per cent higher than the $9.9 billion he projected during the 2015 election.

For the 2017-18 fiscal year, it will be $19.9 billion, 109 per cent higher promised; for 2018-19, $18.6 billion deficit, 226 per cent higher; for 201920 ,$17.3 billion, astronomically higher than the $1-billion surplus he predicted in 2015.

Morneau’s economic statement also predicts that in the first three years of the next Liberal government — should Trudeau win in 2019 — his deficits will be $16.8 billion in 202021, $13.9 billion in 2021-22 and $12.5 billion in 2022-23.

Morneau and Trudeau insist our roaring economy under their leadership enables them to spend billions of dollars more enhancing benefits for the “middle class” — apparently now defined as families with children under 18 and lowincome workers — while lowering deficits compared to their predictions in their March, 2017 budget.

But all that means is that they predicted deficits they knew were higher than the real numbers, so they can claim they’re lower than expected now.

This cynical game Liberals have played for decades doesn’t make them good money managers. It makes them lousy budgeters.

The reality, as Canadians have seen in recent weeks, is that the Trudeau government is already so desperate for cash to pay off interest on government debt that it’s gone after small businesses, retail employee discounts and people suffering from diabetes.

That’s what Trudeau’s care bear economics leads to in the end.