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| EDITORIAL CARTOON - March 9, 2010 |
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| EDITORIAL - March 9, 2010 |
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| Feds walk tightrope |
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News Staff
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It's surprising how things worked out with the 2010 Budget. In many ways, it could have been far worse.
We will first comment the Conservative government for continuing to pump $19 billion in stimulus funding into the economy.
Although this budget at least partly relies on the (unlikely) notion the recession is going to end soon, it's good to see the government hasn't completely bought into that illusion. We aren't out of the woods yet.
One could argue against the logic of reducing military spending during the conflict in Afghanistan, but fortunately those cuts are not applicable for some time. More troubling is the cap on foreign aid, but perhaps that is understandable: we need to look to our own problems first, after all.
Although the budget doesn't ignore agriculture, it doesn't invest much in it either. We already passed through one crippling drought with little assistance from the feds; that we may be expecting another one this summer should be incentive enough to kick more cash into disaster recovery programs.
The government is even less kind to the environment, with the only real contribution in the form of extra funding for "carbon capture" projects.
It's one thing for industry to invest in these ventures, but government? And why do the feds feel the need to hope on Alberta's bandwagon?
As for this business of knee-capping civil servants with a salary freeze... while local MP Brian Storseth is apt in describing how bloated and redundant the government bureaucracy can be, at the same time, we still have a recession raging on. Should we be so eager to put at risk hundreds of thousands of jobs while times are still bad?
The most alarming revelation is the vagueness in the government's promises to eliminate the huge deficit.
We know that approximately $17 billion is going to come from freezing the salaries of civil servants, but where will this chunk of change be coming from without mass firings?
It will be interesting to see how the Conservatives intend to keep this promise of eliminating the deficit. If they deem it necessary to gut programming to avoid raising taxes, are they really doing us a service? |
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