Canada has $592 mln budget surplus in January

[ckramer]

Source: YN

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada posted a $592 million budget surplus in January and nearly $10 billion for the first 10 months of the fiscal year, the finance department said on Friday.

The January surplus was down from the $2.40 billion recorded in January 2007, partly because of income and sales tax cuts introduced in the October economic statement.

The surplus of $9.96 billion for April through January was down from the year-earlier $10.60 billion but was most of the way to the $10.2 billion that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty predicted in his budget last month for the full fiscal year. It would mark the 11th consecutive surplus.

The surplus is slated to pay down debt. The surplus for the year starting on April 1 is expected to be a much smaller $2.3 billion and in the following year only $1.3 billion.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/wl_canada_nm/canada_budget_col;_ylt=Ak6Hpup3VKcO1L9cKr6nB3VvaA8F

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Poor Americans!

[benld74]

1. All this free health care, lower crime rate, colder temperatures,,,

[CHIMO]

2. It's Called

Emptying the bathtub.

Tax cuts shrink government revenues

OTTAWA — The days of the federal government routinely recording surpluses in the tens of billions appear to be over, a new finance department report on its fiscal position suggests.

Meanwhile, program expenses were up $10.8 billion, or 7.2 per cent, for the period, due to higher transfer payments to provinces and individuals, and program expenses, such as the cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan.

[SteinbachMB]

7. Why do you highlight

"expenses, such as the cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan?" Canada committed to this fight, and has agreed to continue to build/safeguard Afghanistan from the Taliban.

[Bigmack]

9. That continued involvement in Afghanistan...

merely points out that Canada doesn't make the smart choices every time.

Read some of the history of Afghanistan. The Brits couldn't conquer them, the Russians couldn't conquer them, the warlord system still controls the country... and the Taliban are just the current manifestation of the tribal/religious/cultural forces that guide that area.

The US and other foreign forces can bomb and raid, but the Taliban... or their equivalent... will live on.

I'd love to see Afghanistan a modern, democratic nation, but they have to go thru some steps first.. the West can't pull them from the 11th century to the 21st with weapons.

Meanwhile, the opium harvests in Afghanistan set records every year.

Remember Vietnam? Remember how that worked out?

"The American elephant could rage and stomp on the Vietnamese anthill, but time and the weight of numbers guaranteed that it would eventually be the ants, not the elephant, who danced on the bones of the victims.''

[NikolaC]

3. Well

Give it a couple more years of a Conservative government and the continued (even probably extended) tax cuts and the surplus will become a fond memory.

[SteinbachMB]

8. Nope.

There is no reason that the surplus can't continue, despite tax cuts. We Canadians like tax cuts, especially when times are good.

[canadian_is_cold]

4. Ahhh, I love Canada :)

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. No biggee really, just means they taxed us more than need be.

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.
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And kept our social assistance benefits below our needs.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. Those socialist bastards!

We need to go in and teach em some learning!