Mr. Speaker, I will not use that term again.
The government took money it was not entitled to legislatively. The EI fund is specifically set up to look after people who are temporarily out of jobs. The government has rolled billions of dollars from that fund into the general revenues in the consolidated revenue fund.
Let me talk more about the debt. Under the present government the debt grew from $508 billion in the 1993 budget. Let us say $546 billion; we will concede that it was not responsible for the deficit in the first year. Now the debt is around $565 billion. The debt has grown and it has grown substantially under the present government. Yet the Liberals are spinning it in such a way that literally thousands of Canadians think that hey, the debt is gone. They keep talking about eliminating the deficit and they do not communicate clearly with Canadians that the deficit is simply the amount one borrows.
Instead of borrowing, we now have surpluses, that is true, but it is with no thanks to the government. It would have happened anyway. The fact of the matter is that our total debt, the amount against our national credit card, is considerably greater.
As hon. members know, I taught at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. One of the courses I taught was the math of finance. I did a little calculation. Just using round numbers, with a debt of roughly $580 billion, which I admit is now a little less, in order to retire a mortgage of $580 billion in 25 years would require posting a surplus toward it of $50 billion a year for 25 years. Those people are doing that. We are paying $40 billion in interest thanks to this government, the one preceding it and the Liberals preceding it. We got that huge debt and now we are paying $40 billion a year in interest. The government is paying it with taxpayers' money and it is paying another $10 billion against the principal. Lo and behold, that adds up to $50 billion a year. At that rate we will be rid of our debt in 25 years.
That is great. As long as I can do anything about it, we will do everything we can to pressure the government into resisting the additional spending it is prone to do. The only thing not mini about the mini-budget is the new spending programs. Added up over the next five years the Liberals are looking at spending an additional $50 billion. A lot of it is for straight political purposes as we have seen particularly over the last year. It is totally atrocious.
I would also like to address the question of tax cuts. The finance minister loves to stand in his place and say they are not only going to do da-di-da, but they are reducing the tax rate to 16%, from 17% to 16%. It is a crime that the Liberals are taking any tax money at all from the people whom they are taxing. They suck $6 billion a year from families whose income is less than $20,000 a year. That is absolutely atrocious. The Liberals are crowing that they are not going to take 17% of our taxable income anymore, but they are now going to take 16%.
This is what those numbers mean. This is approximate; I did not do an actual tax return. I just did some rough calculations based on a family making $26,000, a mom and a dad and two kids. The Liberals tax them around $2,000; actually $2,147 is the number I got. If that is reduced to 16%, their tax is reduced by $126. This is a family that makes a scant $26,000, a mom and a dad trying to raise two kids, and the government is asking us to jump up and click our heels, which I find difficult to do for two reasons and members will them figure out. That family will keep $126, $10 a month, and the Liberals say that is great.
Under our tax plan the same family would get a tax cut of 100%. We would cut that family's taxes entirely. They would not be required to pay because they are poor.
Let us consider people with a little more. The Liberals are trying to spin it that all we want to do is give a tax break to the rich and not to the poor. They are the ones who are taxing the poor. We are the ones who are ready to relieve the poor of tax.