One of ‘em asks if the other had counted Danny Williams’ penchant for them.
Yes, butts in yer humble e-scribbler who was not part of the original discussion: Cameron inquiry. 270 in a four hour stint, plus eight “quite frankly”s. If anyone on the Internet had that kind of obscure information, it would be The Scribbler or labradore.
Ya knows, right?
So then, you know your humble e-scribbler had to check the record by searching on SRBP for all appearances of the phrase “verbal tic” and the plural.
The period between December 2008 and February 2009 was the period this lasted. By the end of February, Williams seems to have gone through some sort of aversion therapy to get them out of his speech pattern.
But what was really fascinating was a post from February that included a reference to Jerome Kennedy and the upcoming budget. Here is the fascinating bit:
Second, finance minister Jerome Kennedy gets himself into a bit of a pickle when he brings up the projected deficit. He puts the shortfall at about $500 million based on assumed production levels and assuming CDN$50 per barrel for oil and then adds on the $400 million from loss of the Equalization option. We’ll grant him that even though it’s a bit of a fiction.
Then Kennedy starts down the dangerous road, mentioning the need to allow for “growth”.
How much growth?
Six per cent.
6%.
Or put in other terms about six times the rate of inflation.
That’s pretty typical for an administration that has been known to ratchet up spending by about 14% annually in some years.
So even with oil prices down, mines in limbo and mineral revenues down drastically, a thousand people out of work in central Newfoundland who knows what else, the government is actually planning to increase overall spending in 2009 by six per cent. That alone would whack $400 million or so onto the deficit all by itself.
Looks like all that the federal changes to Equalization did was take away the convenient federal transfer that would have covered some of that planned unsustainable increase in public spending. Now they just have to stick it on the provincial Amex card.In light of the provincial government’s current mess, there’s a good example of how we got into the muck and just sank deeper and deeper.
-srbp-