One of the greatest political frauds committed by the current administration and its supporters is the idea that they have lowered the public debt.
All the politicians say it.
Wade Locke, their tireless economist, talks about the same thing – net debt – in his soon-to-be-infamous memo to Jerome Kennedy.
Talk of the net debt, reducing net debt, and having a net debt reduction strategy is nothing but a monstrous deception of the public.
The numbers below are what we owe. They are the numbers that determine what we must pay interest on. Ultimately, this is what we would have to pay off to produce any lasting benefit to the people of the province, to serve their best interests.
For, the record, here is the current gross public debt. It is what the people of the province owe and are otherwise liable to pay through their government. For comparison purposes, the always reliable labradore has included figures back to 2001. The source is the provincial Estimates for each year.
The gross debt is higher today than it was in 2003.
The public debt is almost as high as the peak it hit in 2006.
The current government plan is to make the public debt bigger.
They call it reduction.
You judge what to call it when a politician plans to make something larger and calls it a reduction.
-srbp-