This is still a budget based on spending, said John Winter, President of the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce. There is very little real help for business and not enough for debt reduction. Although we must acknowledge the importance of the Personal Income Tax reductions in this budget we have to say that given the size of the spending increases the pace is very slow. We believe the government could have done a lot more for individuals and for business, continued Mr. Winter. They chose instead to increase spending.
Government has to learn to hold the line on their spending.
This government has developed a pattern of taking in far more money than projected and then indulging in surprise year-end spending initiatives, said Mr. Winter. Backloading future spending onto current budgets through this sort of clever accounting artificially lowers the yearly surplus which could have been used to lower the debt or taxes. We also have to remember how serious our debt problem is, closed John Winter. 25 cents of every tax dollar goes to pay interest on that debt. Decreasing that would give us the money for social programs without increasing spending.