Budget puts burden on younger people

The 2024 federal budget claims to have the best interests of millennials and generation Z at heart, but it is difficult to see how.

There is the usual spending spree with no hint of getting the budget back into balance. A deficit of $39.8 billion is forecast for 2024-25, with continued deficits forecast through to 2028-29. Mercifully, the projections end in that year.

A March Angus Reid poll showed 59 per cent of respondents say the federal government is spending too much, and 66 per cent say they're concerned about repeated deficits. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apparently does not share this concern.

In 2015, Trudeau promised three small deficits with the budget back in balance by 2019. Instead, he has given us nine consecutive deficit budgets and has doubled the national debt to over a trillion dollars.

Debt servicing costs in the 2024-25 fiscal year will be $54.1 billion — more than is being spent on health transfers and much more than was scraped up for Canada's Armed Forces in an increasingly dangerous world. By 2028-29, interest on the debt will have grown to $64.3 billion.

Trudeau insults the intelligence of millennials and generation Z by claiming this budget helps them. It is they who are being saddled with growing debt and rising interest costs. It is their tax dollars that will be commandeered in the years ahead to pay the banks, rather than paying for programs and services.

It is they who will pay the price for the Trudeau government's fiscal folly.

Roy Schneider, Regina