The National Post editorial board surveys the federal government’s economic record and discovers it’s really the old Liberal party in disguise:
There is no question the Harper government has been profligate and could easily cut federal spending dramatically without doing further damage to the economy. Since 2006, the Tories have increased nominal federal spending from about $175-billion to just over $250-billion. That’s a shocking rise of almost 43%. Even after accounting for inflation and population growth, plus factoring out the money the Conservatives have spent on anti-recession stimulus (over $75-billion), the real growth in federal spending since 2006 has been nearly 10%.
The size of the federal civil service has increased rapidly, too, as has its composition. The Tories have added 13% to the rolls of the bureaucracy in just five years. Some of this is the result of their expansion of the military, police and border service, but much of it has nothing whatever to do with national security. Health Canada, for instance, has seen a nearly 50% increase in its staff under the Tories, the largest percentage increase of any department.
Mr. Flaherty would not have to be motivated by ideology to pare some of that spending and hiring back. If the Tories simply reversed federal spending to the levels they were at when the worldwide financial crisis hit in the fall of 2008, Ottawa’s budget would be balanced this year. Even if the Tories wanted to hold off on any cuts in transfers to individuals — such as pensions and GST credits — and preserve provincial transfers, they could still find enough cuts to non-essential spending to return to balance in two years.
