Poilievre’s Pay As You Go Plan Would Set Canada On The Path To A Balanced Budget

It also provides a clear and direct contrast to Trudeau’s big-government ideology.

One of the challenges the Conservatives have faced is that they haven’t provided a genuine contrast to Justin Trudeau’s worldview.

Trudeau pushes a vision of Canada where the federal government is at the centre of everything, and where the solution to every problem is to borrow more and spend more.

The idea that governments should live within their means as the rest of us do is completely alien to Trudeau.

Often, the Conservative Party has offered to tweak around the edges of that viewpoint, rather than directly confront it.

For example, in the last campaign Erin O’Toole said the government could run deficits for another decade, and promised to keep Trudeau’s inflationary carbon taxes in place.

In effect, the CPC conceded to Trudeau’s worldview rather than confronting it.

We must confront bad ideas

By refusing to directly confront Trudeau’s ideology, the CPC made it more difficult to trust them.

If you really believe Trudeau is unfit to lead the country, why propose ideas that are similar to his?

Bad ideas must be confronted with good ideas, not just small tweaks.

And that desire for a real confrontation is a key reason the Pierre Poilievre campaign has had such massive crowds and membership sign-ups.

With Canadians feeling the pain of Trudeau’s failed policies and disastrous worldview, Canadians are looking for a clear alternative, and Poilievre is providing that.

Pay as you go

To that end, Poilievre’s plan for a “Pay As You Go Law,” is exactly what Canada needs.

Rather than simply make a vague promise to be a little different from Trudeau in terms of spending, Poilievre is proposing a significant reversal of how things have been going.

Rather than the government spend money and then hope to borrow and tax enough later to cover it, Poilievre is saying that every new dollar of federal spending must be matched with a dollar of cuts to federal spending.

Here’s how Poilievre explained the policy:

“Pay-As-You-Go Act would cap spending by requiring the government to find money for new measures within existing budgets, rather than increasing the debt and taxes. In order to introduce a new dollar of spending measures, the government would first need to find a matching dollar of savings. The law would exempt funding for national emergencies like wars, pandemics and natural disasters and spending increases that were previously budgeted (such as the annual growth in health transfers or military budgets) would not be impacted. However, new spending measures not previously budgeted would require matching savings.

“The great economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell said: ‘The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.’ Politicians are the only creatures in the world that do not live with scarcity, because they can always put costs on to someone else in higher taxes, debt or inflation”, said Poilievre.

“Families and businesses already follow the Pay-As-You-Go Law every day. When they spend more on one thing, they spend less on another. A family budget can afford a $2,000 vacation or a $2,000 renovation. Not both. They must pick. Still better, they might go deal hunting to get their vacation down $1,000 and get surplus lumber from a local construction site to cut their costs. They can do both by getting bargains on each—but they can’t blow through their budget. That is life in the real world. The Pay-As-You-Go Law brings the real world to government. The people have been pinching their pennies long enough. It is time politicians started pinching their pennies too.”

This is good policy and good politics.

It is good for the country because it will get us back on the path to balanced budgets while easing inflation, and it’s good politics because it demonstrates that Poilievre is the candidate offering real ideological change vs Justin Trudeau.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – YouTube

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