Candidates bearing gifts

Steve Clinton | Mar 30, 2022

I was taught from a very young age an important thing about money. My father was a young boy going through the great depression in the 1930's. The word debt back in those days was the worst of all four-letter words. It is why so many people suffered and lost everything.  We as a society haven't understood that for a long time. We all have mortgages, car loans, student loans, furniture loans, cell phone loans and every other loan that a bank and credit card company can convince you to buy on debt. As a child if I wanted something material like a toy or a bike I would have to earn the money first and then I was able to buy it.

Government debt is the worst type of debt. First of all our politicians are borrowing on our future. This would be fine if it was only done in an emergency situation like in the spring of 2020. The problem is they have been doing this continuously year after year for decades. Our elected officials are now spending not just our future taxes but our kids, grandkids and great grandkids as well. 

A second problem with debt is now becoming apparent to all of us. It's called inflation. We all know that all of our costs have gone up a crazy amount in the last 2 years in particular.  This is totally caused by government debt spending.  They will tell us it's not their fault but they would be wrong.

This is a simple way of explaining inflation. Let’s say we all just got a 50% raise. Now we're rolling in money. We go buy all sorts of stuff. Sounds great doesn't it. But wait a minute. There isn't enough stuff to go around so everyone starts to pay more for the limited stuff that's still around. This is inflation. The cause of our current inflation is the massive money injection the governments have blessed us with. Now that housing prices are up 50% is your employer going to give you a 50% raise? I didn't think so. Our wages can't keep up with inflation as long as we let governments continue to buy our vote with debt. This has to stop.

We have to live within our means. As a community we have to support each other and that includes buying local even if it costs more. This creates jobs for our future. 

So, with these elections coming up when a candidate is offering to buy your vote ask them, How are you going to pay for that? "This is not the time to pay for it" is not the right answer. Your Prime Minister said this after he was given a balanced budget when he took office. We owe more than $1,186,000,000,000 now plus future liability for pensions and other government obligations. Our future generations deserve better.

Steve Clinton