Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the number of nice to haves on the spending list. That certainly is a characterization of this budget. It looks like it was a Christmas shopping list coming a little late.
However there is an underlying, very worrying principle that I want the member to address. The increase in spending projected over the next three years is larger than any of the most optimistic increases in the development of the economy. When a future plan for a nation is laid out where the government will continue to tax at high levels and increasingly spend at greater and greater levels, faster than the economy can ever grow, that means that we are not in wise hands and we are going to get into great difficulty.
It is the old adage: the government taxes too much, therefore winds up spending too much and we still owe too much.
On the calculation of the national debt it is interesting to see that there has been a little correction. Somehow the national debt calculation has been revised by just a mere $27 billion. That certainly affects the overall debt to GDP ratio. One wonders what happened with the bookkeeping when $27 billion is misplaced somewhere.
How wise is it to increase spending each year far beyond what the economy will grow? That certainly is heading for trouble as far as I am concerned and I do not see anything in the budget to address it.