Debt, deficit…what would Canada do?
While this country is involved in discussions (held mostly in secret) concerning our ever increasing debt, and ever increasing spending, perhaps we should look to what the liberals in Canada did. Yes, you read that correctly, the liberals.
In 1992 Canada faced a debt that was almost 70% of GDP. Thirty-five cents of every dollar collected in revenue was needed just to pay the debt.
Canadians have told us they want the deficit brought down by reducing government spending, not by raising taxes…
Newly elected Liberal Party Prime Minister Jean Chretian listened.
Here is what Canada did. For every dollar in tax increases, the government cut spending by seven dollars. The number of government employees shrunk by 14%. Canada’s railways and air traffic controllers were privatized.
The result…
Between 1995 and 1998, a $36.6 billion deficit turned into a $3 billion surplus. Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio was cut in half in a decade. Canada now has faster economic growth than America…a lower jobless rate…a deficit-to-GDP ratio that’s a quarter of ours, and a stronger dollar.
And, if that doesn’t convince you that the United States is on the road to ruin, perhaps this will. The former Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Allan Gottleib, recently published a book …”The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow”. In the forward, Ambassador Gottleib writes,
[i]f we want to see what would have become of Canada had we not lived through difficult changes, we need look no further than Washington, D.C., where unreformed entitlements and undisciplined borrowing are hobbling America’s power to be a world leader.
We now stand in the same place as Canada did some 20 years ago. Twenty years from now, will we look like Greece does today, or like Canada does today?
The choice is ours.
6 Comments
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How ironic, the Obama Administration wants us to copy a failing Healthcare program in Canada. But, it doesn’t want to follow an economic policy that worked successfully in Canada. You draw the conclusion.
Drill, Baby, Drill
How much does Canada prosper on our enormous purchase of oil from them?
About 2-to-1 over the second largest importer, Saudi Arabia
Canada is the leading importer of oil to the USA.? If we just drilled in ANWR or even the northern states we could pay ourselves for the crude.
Just to note, Mexico is the 3rd largest importer.? You don’t think there is a load of oil sitting underneath us?? If not, keep sticking you heads in the sand like the proverbial Ostrich; maybe you just might get a taste of it.
There goes the U.S., “leading” from behind.? What used to be a country of innovators and thinkers has turned into socialist, economically stupid “leaders” who are systematically burying us under government spending/taxing.? I think David Gilmour says it best:
There’s no way out of here, when you come in you’re in for good
There was no promise made, the part you’ve played, the chance you took
There are no boundaries set, the time and yet you waste it still
Our government consists of time vampires:? all they do is spin their wheels til the next election cycle and accomplish nothing to move this country forward.? *sigh*
?
As long as the “gimmees” outvote the rest of us (or just steal elections), Greece here we come.
This election in November will again point out the direction we are taking.
We are at fault because many just sit by the wayside and do nothing.
Well they obviously had spending problem not the Revenue problem we have, correct Senators?