Leave to the ever charming labradore to remind everyone that the financial mess Danny Williams left behind is actually something he made clear he would do in 2008.
The quote is one your humble e-scribbler completely forgot about but reading now three years later it is the kind of thing that makes chills run up and down your spine:
As you pay down the debt it also gives you the ability then to bring it back up. It’s no different than if you paid down your line of credit at the bank or pay off your car loan, it gives you the ability to go borrow a little more, take a little more if you need it. So, that money will be used, for example, that, that surplus that’s actually going on the debt, though, will also be used to fund, you know, the settlements with the unions. I think the public sector settlements are going to cost us in the range of a half-billion dollars a year forever. So, that money will sort of go, go towards the public sector workers, which is, which is good, though, from an economic perspective because now we have this whole new infusion of eight percent and then four, four, and four into the economy and that’ll help drive our own economy, as well.
You pay debt down and then rack it up again. You’re never gonna pay it down. That riff is shamelessly pirated from labradore but you have to acknowledge humour and genius wrapped into one.
But while he stayed on the debt thingy and noted that the public sector union’s benefits would only be a third of the total $37 billion Wade Locke talked about, there’s another angle to that which you can see if you want to open your eyes to it.
So much of what is driving the economy in the St. John’s region over the past seven years has been public sector spending. That what an integral part of Williams’ political plan and one of the ways he helped create the illusion of some sort of economic miracle.
As we’ve seen this past week, these financial chickens are coming home to roost. The fundamental political fraud that lay as the foundation of Williams’ political fortune is crumbling.
No wonder he practically ran from the Premier’s Office last Christmas talking about how it was important to know when to leave.
Instead of running the province into the ground he can now have someone organize rallies of school children at a local hockey rink so they can chant his name just like the old days of local politics.
- srbp -