Federal Budget Time Again

On February 18, the occasional federal budget - having abandoned a strictly 'annual federal budget' - will be presented. In British Columbia, a double whammy awaits taxpayers as both federal and provincial budgets are tabled that day.

As much as the average Canadian taxpayer dreads this time of year, there is one person for whom the financial pressures that mount are even greater: the federal finance minister.

Why should we feel sorry for an 'Ottawan' ogre who puts so much of our paycheques into the federal cache of cash?"

It is that very hostility that makes decisions about the federal budget so difficult to make. The job is even more impossible for John Manley, following, as he is, for the first time in his predecessor's footsteps and allegedly continuing to have excess money to spend.

The natural inclination - one hopes - for a finance minister who suddenly finds himself with too much income from taxpayers is to simply ship it back - a break for tax weary Canadians who could use a fund infusion to their bottom lines.

Mr. Manley is also deluged with calls to restore funding to social programs long since slashed in the battle to slay budget deficits, especially given the retirement tour initiatives of 'da Boss.'

The third side of the coin is the need to attack that other most cumbersome of financial beasts: the national debt.

Bringing in consecutive balanced budgets has been no small feat for the federal Liberals. But one can only applaud those achievements so long when the mammoth debt still haunts us - and we still pay for it through interest payments to the tune of $40 billion annually. Fiscally prudent types would have the minister spend any surplus paying down Canada's massive national debt; what Canadian wouldn't attempt to pay down the mortgage or credit cards with a sudden budgetary surplus?

If the finance minister's primary quandary is finding a split between tax breaks and program spending, what are we to do with that monstrous debt we're carrying? The solution stares us in the face every Wednesday and Saturday evening at ten minutes to seven: the answer to the national debt is a national lotto.

Canadians desperate to create a retirement portfolio promising more than Kraft dinner and cans of tuna in old age spend millions of dollars on lottery tickets each week. If the feds tapped into a special lottery and used the proceeds against our national debt, we could take a mighty chunk out of those hundreds of billions we owe in no time. They would simply be obliged by legislation to funnel all of the proceeds from the sale of these lottery tickets directly to paying down the debt. No exceptions.

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