$8 Bill a year is probably the amount that spending increased over the past 5 years. Bottom line, don't spend like drunken sailors when times are good, because boom times are inevitably followed by bad times. The big problem now is that going back on spending now would probably increase unemployment and hurt the economy.
Very difficult bind to be in for the premier. The only prudent thing Eddie can do is continue the hiring freeze and start zero based budgeting in every government department to attempt to make the government more efficient(of course my personal belief is that there are numerous slush fund style reward positions for friends of the PC party that account for most of the waste which can only be eliminated if the PC's are ousted from power). That won't even get him a quarter of the way back to balance for the the budget but it's all he can do until gas prices improve. If he starts chopping wildly, Klein style, there will only be more unemployment and backlogged infrastructure plans that would require more spending down the road.
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