Budget surplus could be bigger than forecast in 2015, Flaherty tells CTV

Not trying to fluff up the conservatives. I think a surplus is a good thing regardless of who is in charge.

nice

I'm from Manitoba could someone please explain a "surplus" to me.

That's when the government takes too much of your paycheque to cover their debits, and returns the difference in propaganda disguised as feel good political advertising.

That's when the government takes too much of your paycheque to cover their debits, and returns the difference in propaganda disguised as feel good political advertising.

I think your comment is a little biased.

A surplus should logically be used to pay down outstanding debts but, of course, it will probably just be frittered away on the usual nonsense.

That's when the government takes too much of your paycheque to cover their debits, and returns the difference in propaganda disguised as feel good political advertising.

I think your comment is a little biased.

I think you haven't been paying attention. If there is a surplus, then logically they took too much in taxes.



^^ That.

Becomes this:

That's when the government takes too much of your paycheque to cover their debits, and returns the difference in propaganda disguised as feel good political advertising.

I still think it's better than when they take too little and rack up billions in debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off.

As some of your pointed out, there's debt to be paid off, many of your want more money spent on the military. Or how about hiring back those CRA inspectors that were let go, to bring in more money from tax cheats. Or actually hiring people to enforce the new temp worker laws that went into effect but have littler personnel to enforce them. Meat inspectors? The list is long.

That's when the government takes too much of your paycheque to cover their debits, and returns the difference in propaganda disguised as feel good political advertising.

I still think it's better than when they take too little and rack up billions in debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off.

I think they should be like the rest of us; if they rack up debit one year, it has to be paid off ASAP - and debit repayment is always part of a budget now. Revolving credit is not an answer, and taking too much off a person's paycheque to waste on irrelevancies that are only designed to make us feel better about the robbery takes away from the children right away. We're both Albertans, we know how bad racking up too much debit is, and the bloodletting that has to be done to repay it.

Still waiting on them to fulfill the 20 year old promise to eliminate child poverty, yet I see millions spent on 'happy' signs that do absolutely nothing for anyone except to try to currie political favour.

Bahhh! Public safety? We're posting a surplus! What's the problem?

As stupid as it is, the overall budget commitment to putting signs up is an insignificant fraction of the total budget.

If we could pay off all of our debts, imagine how much money would be saved that we could put towards more important things like military spending, healthcare, improving our highways and cutting taxes.

As stupid as it is, the overall budget commitment to putting signs up is an insignificant fraction of the total budget.

If we could pay off all of our debts, imagine how much money would be saved that we could put towards more important things like military spending, healthcare, improving our highways and cutting taxes.

I agree, debt elimination is key. But debt repayment schedules are always part of budgets now. Then again, EI premium surpluses went into general revenue, and they too were a tax that didn't need to come out of people's pockets.

'Feel good' spending may be a very small portion of the budget, but so is a $16.00 glass of orange juice and look at the flack that caused! The point being, it's spending that we don't need to make towards any political party. One of the few good things I think the CPC did was eliminate the payments made to parties based on the number of votes they got. But it seems the CPC managed to end run those rules too.

That's a pretty good return for selling off the Forces at a Christmas rummage sale.