If you missed Monday's budget, here's the Reader's Digest version. Paul Martin rose at 4:03pm in the House and in the span of 40 minutes proceeded to lay out some $7.7 billion in spending over the next five years on defence, the RCMP, CSIS, airport security, faster border processing of people and goods and changes to the immigrant screening process.

Over the next three years, program spending will rise 20% with a whopping 9.4% jump next year alone. Canada's crushing $547.4 debt will not be paid down, no new tax cuts were announced and not one single penny of government spending was cut. (Note: Reader's Digest folk can now turn the page but if you're looking to bust the drug store blood pressure meter this afternoon, please read on.)

This "no spending cuts" fact alone points to the height of government arrogance - which now surpasses Mount Everest - when it comes to contempt for the sweat of Canadians who still send a sizable chunk of their income to Ottawa. A mere six days after Auditor General Sheila Fraser tabled her first scathing report documenting billions of dollars in discretionary and wasteful spending, Jean Chretien and his governing gang gave taxpayers the Trudeau salute with this budget.

If September 11th has taught us anything, it is that good government is about making choices and setting expenditure priorities. This gang chose to run away from anything that even remotely resembles a priority. Instead we have smoke and mirrors defence and security spending, an aviation security charge (read: user-fee cash cow) in search of a plan, an infrastructure foundation flush with new cash even though Ottawa can't find enough projects for the current infrastructure plan.

Meanwhile, personal income taxes remain too high, our debt burden continues to crush the future of our children and Canadian workers and employers still overpay into the EI lottery fund … but only the government seems to win.

In fairness to the feds, no one denies that security spending is priority number one and on the surface, $1.2 billion for the defence department, $1.6 billion for intelligence (read: CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment) and policing, and $2.2 billion for border checks and immigration screening are somewhat impressive. But the real impact of these measures must be put in a historical context.

For example, when the grits came to power in 1993, defence spending alone accounted for 1.8% of our GDP. Today it rests at 1.2% and in five years - accounting for Monday's budget measures - it will only sit at 1.3%. This will place us second amongst NATO countries … second from the bottom. A well-funded, professionally trained and properly equipped military is the first "social program" a government should fund. If we can't protect our borders and citizens, every other program from medicare to pensions to aboriginal funding is moot.

On the aviation security side, Ottawa unveiled a $2.2 billion program to be administered by a not-for-profit agency which will coordinate policing, passenger screening and baggage checking, cockpit improvements and armed undercover officers on randomly selected flights. To finance this effort, starting next April passengers will be forced to cough up $12 each way for domestic and U.S. trips and the fee doubles for international flights.

Creating another bureaucracy is not the answer to address the question of security concerns. More effective private sector measures such as tougher fines for failed screening of bags and clarified federal regulations are a superior approach. As well, matching every checked bag with a passenger (like they do in Europe) would be a start. And instead of confiscating nail clippers and portable shavers from the travelling public, actually having carry-on baggage screeners and the rent-a-cops that perform metal searches at airport actually doing their jobs would be a welcome change.

In the last ten days I flew out of Ottawa to Chicago O'Hare then Lexington and returned. As well, I flew from Montreal Dorval to NYC LaGuardia and returned. Both times, baggage screeners in Canada were lax, electric toys (read: computers, pagers, cell phones) were haphazardly checked and full body metal wands were completed in seconds. It was hardly a confidence building exercise. On the other hand, U.S. bag searches were thorough, metal wands including undoing belts, putting shoes back through scanners separately and in one case, a hand pat down were much more, dare I say it, reassuring.

Who came up with this $2.2 billion figure? How will passenger user-fees be disbursed? What delays come with this pricetag? Before we are asked to cough up another penny when flying, airlines should be screening and matching all bags with passengers, if they won't do it voluntarily, then Ottawa should be making it happen as opposed to creating more government bodies.

The real problem with this budget is found once again by examining the government's own numbers. Not one single penny of spending was cut to reallocate money from wasteful areas (hello corporate welfare, HRDC boondoggles and regional development slush funds) to defence and security priorities. Instead, Ottawa continues to overtax workers and employers through excessively high EI premiums (the accumulated EI surplus will blow past $40 billion this March) and uses this money to fund its new budget schemes. Even Brian Tobin's broadband boondoggle will receive $115 million over the next three years.

Finally, the analysis wouldn't be complete without a cursory mention of taxes and debt. Paul Martin continues to be economical with the truth when talking about his $100 billion tax cut. When CPP increases, bracket creep adjustments and child tax benefit spending (masked as a tax cut) is taken into account, the five year tax cut is only $47 billion. While welcome, it is not $100 billion as promoted. And to add insult to injury, our federal personal income tax burden, when measured as a share of GDP higher today (7.4%) than it was in 1994 (7.34%).

And what about the children? Well the gutting of the contingency reserve, lack of a legislated schedule of debt reduction makes Minister Martin the latest in a series of finance Ministers - along Loiselle, Mazankowski, Wilson, Lalonde, MacEachern and Chretien, just to name a few - who are guilty of perpetuating the fiscal crime of intergenerational tax evasion by dumping the debt onto our children and grandchildren. It brings a sense of sadim to the phrase, Merry Christmas kids.