[Newsbot]

Title: Deficit could hit $25B and still honour Liberals' 'fiscal anchor'
Category: Political
Posted By: N_Fiddledog
Date: 2015-12-13 13:03:42
Canadian

[ShepherdsDog]

[Freakinoldguy]

$1:

With uncosted election promises piling up on top of unforeseen shortfalls in the underlying fiscal plan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has emphasized the more-reachable fiscal anchor in recent days.

"We will continue to decrease (the debt-to-GDP ratio) every single year because that's important for the fiscal health of our country," Trudeau said Wednesday, after casting further doubt on the $10-billion annual deficit target because of economic challenges.

"We always targeted modest deficits, we had hoped it would be around $10 billion we will see if we will be able to hold at that level."

$1:

The Liberal Party is promising to run deficits of up to $10-billion a year over the next three years, touting a new infrastructure program as the best way to create economic growth and help balance the books by 2019.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e26125406/


Self explanatory.

[andyt]

$1:

Economist Moffatt, who stress-tested the fiscal numbers in the Liberals' election platform, said if nominal GDP growth returned to a more-normal level in the coming years -- of about 3.5 or four per cent -- then the government could probably run deficits up to $25 billion without pushing the ratio up.

Good luck with that. When was the last time we saw GDP growth at 3.5 percent. These guys seem to really have trouble accepting the new normal. There's nothing on the horizon that would indicate that kind of growth. Not oil going back up, not China ramping up again, nor the US. And also not with the commitments made in Paris. Time to deal with reality, and share the pain.

[OnTheIce]

We cannot spend our way to long term prosperity. The sooner politicians of all stripes realise this, we'll be better off.