National debt a dead weight

It’s great to be in the black, even for a few minutes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty say tax collectors garnered some $14 billion more out of our collective, sorry hides than they needed. The money will go toward paying off our national debt.

I have a thing about debt, any debt, mine or anybody else’s. If it can’t be avoided - like an STD, I like to see it paid off. Soonest. Fiscally nuked.

The national debt is about $467.3 billion: too high, but the lowest in more than a decade (continuing the good work begun by former Liberal finance minister and then prime minister Paul Martin).

I suspect the Liberals and New Democrats are itching to spend the loot on new social programs – some useful and some merely increasing folks’ dependency on government. I was happily surprised to hear NDP leader Jack Layton call for much-needed infrastructure work for communities and the economy. That makes sense. Maybe Layton’s big win in Montreal has actually brought him back to sensible reality. We can hope.

Over all, I think getting rid of debilitating debt is the first order. Provincially, when then premier John Hamm got a whopping cheque for $830 million from Prime Minister Martin for the off-shore royalties, Hamm and opposition leader Darrell Dexter agreed to pile the lot on the provincial debt: saving taxpayers about $50 million annually in debt payments since, funds that can go to programs and services we really need.

Harper says his government’s move will save us $725 million in annual debt servicing. Most bets are Harper is saving the details of how these savings will be distributed – likely for the election campaign he hopes to spark with his upcoming throne speech. The big money is on income tax cuts, though they would be in the lower double digits per taxpayer.

I’m not one to cut taxes just to say it happened. We don’t want to wind up like the United States, where most tax cuts went to those who didn’t need – or deserve - them.

Statistics show federal spending reached $222.2 billion in 2006/ 2007, up some 7.5 per cent from the previous fiscal year. Revenues, however, went up 6.2 per cent to $236 billion.

Original surplus estimates ranged from $3 billion to $9 billion.

Harper is, of course, pleased to attribute it all to the government’s fiscal practices and the resulting economic growth. The Canadian dollar reflects that.

Well, it isn’t that simple.

Our energy resource sector is booming, along with the regions in which those natural riches are located, while our industrial infrastructure is atrophying big time – here in Nova Scotia and in the Ontario heartland – not good news, regardless how well things are going in Alberta, Newfoundland, and even Saskatchewan.

Planning needs to be done and infrastructure maintained and expanded - nationwide.

But, it’s not a bad thing to reduce that debilitating national debt.