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Why this rapid deterioration? Is it because of the economy? Not really: though growth is projected to be slower than forecast, it accounts for only a small part of the increased deficit. On average, annual revenues for the current and next three fiscal years are now expected to be $12 billion less than the track the Conservatives laid out in their last budget. Of that, about $2 billion is accounted for by the Liberals’ middle-class tax cut — you’ll recall, the one that was supposed to be revenue neutral.

The rest is higher spending: about $19 billion more, every year. The Liberals have embarked on one of the biggest peacetime spending sprees in our history: a 21 per cent increase — 14 per cent, adjusting for increases in population and prices — in their first three years. They will spend more next year, after inflation, after population growth, than the Harper government did at the height of a world-wide financial crisis.

Where is all this spending going? Not on social transfers to the provinces: they’re actually projected to be slightly lower than the Conservatives had planned. And for all the hype, only a fraction — less than a third — is for infrastructure, even by the Liberals’ exceedingly loose definition of the word. The rest is current consumption: things like enhanced child benefits that, splendid policies though they are, are not the sorts of things you should pay for with borrowed funds.

Much effort has gone into presenting this as not-his-father’s deficits. But it is difficult to escape the impression that the current generation of Liberals are spending vastly more than they take in for that most old-fashioned of reasons: because they want to.

Editor’s note:Owing to an error in editing, the average annual deficit in the federal government’s Fall Economic Statement was misstated in this column as it originally appeared. It is more than $20 billion, not “more than $2 billion.”