Liberal Costing figures (en francais)

Now that I've had an opportunity to look at the Liberal's costing table, I think I understand where they got the $18.199 billion dollar figure for their phony "Conservative Promise" calculator. (so they shaved off $101 million, what's a few million amongst Liberals?)

If you look at the total column - it shows $18.3 billion on Line 6, available for "new initiatives".

That's assuming, of course, that any new government implements the entire agenda of Liberal programs and promises rolled out AFTER their last budget, including a whopping $39 billion from their 'not a budget, budget' update and another $11.2 billion AFTER the update.

Ya - I know, that's a pretty long sentence, but that's a lot of billions to keep track of and it's early in the morning.

At least we now know what they've been doing with those Challenger jets since the last budget. Must have burned a lot of jet fuel spreading that kind of loot around the country.

For one last example, look at their explanation for Line 6, found on Page 81:

"This is the starting point for the platforms of all Parties – i.e., the fiscal “room” of $18.3 billion potentially available for the measures they propose.* Any Party not starting from this baseline must explain which of the foregoing measures they would change. For example, would they roll back legislated tax cuts? Would they cut programs already approved and up-and-running from past Budgets?"

I guess they're just so used to being in power and dictating terms that it never occured to them that other political parties, and Canadians overall, might have a different agenda.

I'll do my civic duty and suggest the first cost saving measure - send Volpe to the opposition bench. Should save us a pretty penny on the 'entertainment' budget.

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