Who to Believe – Flaherty or Budget Office?

Posted by Ian

Jun 14

This entry is part 9 of 18 in the series harpernomics

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated that the projected deficit by our Finance Minister is way off base, that in fact, it will be considerably larger than he has stated, and that only increased taxes and cuts in spending will eventually return our economy to a surplus. Mr. Flaherty says that even though the Budget Office has been right all the time, so far, more in fact than he has, this time he is wrong.

He rejected the suggestion from Kevin Page, the parliamentary budget officer, that major spending cuts or tax hikes will be the only way to get Canada out of the red within five years.

Past warnings from Page have proven accurate. But Flaherty says he’s off-base this time, because the bleak prediction is based on unduly pessimistic economic-growth projections. ( CBC News )

The argument given by Flaherty does make sense. However, the truth is that one should plan for the worst, hope for the best. In addition, there are a lot of outside factors that seem to come into play, which both Mr. Flaherty & his boss, Stephen Harper, have ignored, repeatidly. That being the impact of the outside world.

I don’t know, not an economist here, but I would rather look at what the people WHO GET IT RIGHT MORE THAN WRONG SAY THAN THOSE WHO GET IT WRONG MORE THAN THEY GET IT RIGHT. Mr. Flaherty & Harper have yet to get it right, and they won an election on wrong projections, on standing by their belief that we would not need a stimulus package, or deficit financing.

AND THAT ISN’T EVEN A YEAR AGO.

Flaherty projected a small deficit, then a huge deficit of $30 Billion, and just a few months later, that deficit has now ballooned to about FIFTY BILLION. While Harper & Flaherty continued to LIE TO US, only the PARLIAMENTARY BUDGET OFFICE TOLD US THE TRUTH, EVEN THEN.

SO WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE FLAHERTY & HARPER NOW?

If the budget officer is right, and we are looking at years of pain, of economic chaos, why isn’t Flaherty at least looking at other solutions? Why does he ignore the advice and projections of the one government agency that gets it right? And why aren’t THEIR projections being taken into account in his own planning?

No one likes bad news. Certainly not a minority government, but I wonder if that is why Mr. Flaherty is so insistent that things aren’t so bad? I mean playing politics is one thing, but this translates into a lot of money, a lot of out of work people, and a lot of pain for the average citizen. Surely this is one thing that one SHOULD NOT PLAY POLITICS WITH?

If a Government is HONEST with the people, are we going to rush out and blame them for the downturn? Not if they explain it right, not if they offer real solutions instead of generating fear, not if they provide clear differences between their plan for recovery, and that of the opposition parties, and yet Mr. Harper consistently lies to us, deceives us, and expects us to trust him?

Gay Talk

Who to Believe – Flaherty or Budget Office?