http://www.financialpost.com/news/story.html?id=1219586
Summary
Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled an new economic recovery plan. The federal government intends to spend what is necessary in order to stimulate our economy once again. The economic plan includes infrastructure spending, ensuring access to credit,financial help to struggling job sectors, and some measures to protect the "vulnerable". Harper believes that these actions will protect the jobs of today and help create new jobs of tomorrow. The Conservatives revealed that within this economic recovery plan that Canada will have a two-year deficit of 64 billion. 13 billion is going to be spent on spending initiatives which includes 7 billion being spent in infrastructure, 2 billion towards housing for low-income Canadians and 160 million for the arts community.
The federal government sensing that the economy is going to continue to sag, decided to do something about it. Harper is going to increase our federal expenditure in an attempt to get the economy back on its feet.Unfortunately our debt charges are going to go up because of this. Our other expenditures that will go up are transportation and housing.Harper did not reveal where the other amount of money is going to go to but regardless it is going to increase our federal expenditures substantially from the other years past.
I think this is a good initiative by the federal government. We need to try to get out of this economic slump as quickly as possible.Everyone is suffering because of this poor economic conditions.It is a good feeling to know that the government is trying to do something to help the people suffering,particularly the low-income Canadians. They are probably the ones suffering the most at this point.It frightens me that some speculate that Canadians face "several difficult years" of "unprecedented" uncertainty.I can't imagine several years of being in a economic recession but that is how it looks like at this point.
2 comments:
Sounds like a great plan. I think that a lot of governments around the world are also doing the same thing in order to boost their economy back to up. I am glad to hear that our slow-moving government is reacting so quick. Maybe it was the increasing footsteps of the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics that is pressuring Stephen Harper and his parties to do something fast.
But what if, what if the two-year deficit of 64 billion doesn't get paid off in time for another unexpected financial attack to hit us. What are we going to do then? Borrow more money? Increasing more government expenditures in effort to save the crisis?
The security of jobs, and creations of jobs are very good words, but at the same time, the cost of other goods/services will most likely to increase as well? Due to the instability of the current global financial condition, it is still very hard to tell the outcome of all the hard work put into the rescuing plan.
- Christy Leung
While it is good to see the government taking action for the recession, it is hard to tell whether this plan would work or not. It says it would create more jobs to fight the current low employment but with the situation looking so bleak, it’s hard to believe it would make a difference. Also with the Conservative government in danger of being elected off due to the coalition, I wonder if this quick decision was a way to sway people’s votes in time for the coalition. It is a great sum of money to add to the national debt and pumping that much money into the economy may not even help our situation now and create bigger problems in the future.
Post a Comment