Is this BS or should we take heed? Perhaps it is not so wise to create *new* white elephants.
Pay a little now or more later: deficit crisis won't go away without pain, Freep.
"Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page laid out the broad outlines of
the dilemma confronting the Conservative government - and by extension
provinces - a week ago. Over the next 40 years, the ratio of retirees to
workers will go from one in five to one in two, decimating government
revenues and increasing health-care and other social costs.
The current annual deficit of $56 billion, caused mainly by a weak
economy, will give way to a permanent one of between $20 and $40 billion
in as little as five years, experts predict. And that shortfall would
go on year after year even when the economy is operating at full
strength. There's no telling how big annual deficits could reach during
future downturns.
Taken to its logical conclusion, in seven decades, Canada's debt
overhang could grow to 350 per cent the size of the entire annual
economy. By way of comparison, it's about 34 per cent now.
It won't get to that point - Canada would be bankrupt long before and
no one would be lending it money.
The question is: what are Canadians prepared to do and when to stop
it?
TD chief economist Don Drummond hopes the Tories don't repeat the
mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s, when politicians assured Canadians that
economic growth would solve the problem.
"The experience of the '60s and '70s and '80s shows it is very easy
to let this slip away from you," Drummond said."
Pay a little now or more later: deficit crisis won't go away without pain, Freep.
"Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page laid out the broad outlines of
the dilemma confronting the Conservative government - and by extension
provinces - a week ago. Over the next 40 years, the ratio of retirees to
workers will go from one in five to one in two, decimating government
revenues and increasing health-care and other social costs.
The current annual deficit of $56 billion, caused mainly by a weak
economy, will give way to a permanent one of between $20 and $40 billion
in as little as five years, experts predict. And that shortfall would
go on year after year even when the economy is operating at full
strength. There's no telling how big annual deficits could reach during
future downturns.
Taken to its logical conclusion, in seven decades, Canada's debt
overhang could grow to 350 per cent the size of the entire annual
economy. By way of comparison, it's about 34 per cent now.
It won't get to that point - Canada would be bankrupt long before and
no one would be lending it money.
The question is: what are Canadians prepared to do and when to stop
it?
TD chief economist Don Drummond hopes the Tories don't repeat the
mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s, when politicians assured Canadians that
economic growth would solve the problem.
"The experience of the '60s and '70s and '80s shows it is very easy
to let this slip away from you," Drummond said."
