In the movie The Princess Bride, the character of Vizzini keeps saying "Inconceivable!" in response to just about everything Westley does.
At the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, Inigo Montoya makes the observation: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
It is a scene that plays over in my mind every time I hear someone describe the Conservatives as "fiscally responsible."
Consider the national debt. In 2006, when the Conservatives came to power, we were paying it off. In 2005, a $13.2 billion dollar surplus was applied against the money that we owe.
For the first two years under Prime Minister Harper and the Conservatives, we paid off another $13.8 billion and $9.6 billion. We were headed in the right direction.
Then the financial crisis of 2008 hit and the purse strings didn't just loosen. They were removed entirely.
In 2009, the federal deficit was $55.6 billion years. The argument was that we needed to spend in order to shore up the collapsing economy. But we were also told by the finance minister the government would only run deficits for a few years. After all, we had Canada's Economic Action Plan.
The deficits have dragged on and on, though, with another $33.3 billion in 2010, $26.2 billion more in 2011, and $61.4 billion more over the past three years. Each year we are promised that the future will be better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
So far, this little economic hiccup has increased the national debt by $176.5 billion.
Remember when the Liberals were in power? We had a national debt clock ticking away on dozens of Internet sites. We were constantly reminded by pundits that our debt was killing us. A job destroyer was the way that a young Stephen Harper described it.
Why is it that increasing the national debt under a Conservative government is seen as fiscally responsible while under any other government it is seen as irresponsible and job destroying? Where are the pundits decrying the present fiscal burden?
The argument could be made that the past seven years are exceptions but the same thing happened the last time the Conservatives were in power for any length of time. From 1984 to 1992, Brian Mulroney and his Conservative government ran up $293.5 billion in debt. They more than doubled the national debt.
Indeed, the Conservative government took our national debt to unprecedented levels which cannot all be blamed on the previous government. He had eight years to fix the problem.
To put this in perspective, the Liberals under Jean Chretien only increased the national debt by $47.3 billion during their 10 years in power. Under Paul Martin, the national debt only actually decreased by $14.6 billion.
I do not understand how we can describe a party that is constantly overspending as fiscally responsible especially when the Liberals manage to deliver more and better programs while keeping the debt under control.
Which brings us to the latest fiscal update by Finance Minister Joe Oliver delivered to a select audience and not to Parliament.
Oliver has somehow managed to take a positive and turn it into a negative while telling us that we should be happy about this. Next year's budget will finally show a surplus of $1.9 billion which may sound good but it was previously predicted to be $6.4 billion. That is money that would and should have gone to addressing the national debt.
Remember the Conservative party told us for years that debt kills the economy.
Now that they have a chance to pay down some of that debt, are they doing it? No. They are committing to spending $4.5 billion dollars of your money to fund the Harper government's proposal for families.
Not all families, though. Just the ones where income splitting can be applied. Two parents working with roughly the same wages will not benefit.
For example, the average household income in Prince George is $57,000 which is higher than the provincial average. If one person earns that money and the other spouse stays home, then you can have income splitting. But if that money is earned by two people, one with a $30,000 per year salary and the other at $27,000 per year, then there is no income splitting.
Yes, the two-salary household will likely pay a marginally smaller amount of tax because of the way that the tax brackets are set. But they will also need to spend way more of their income on child care. Isn't that really where we should be focusing the billions that Harper wants to spend?
How about making all child care expenses, up to $10,000 per year, tax deductible? If you really want to help families, that would likely be a more fiscally responsible way to spend billions.
