This week's Throne Speech confirms my suspicion that we have time warped back to the 1970s. Platform shoes and bell bottoms dominate the fashion magazines, mind altering drugs seem to be hip again amongst segments of our teenage population and Joe Clark has re-emerged as a national political leader.

Closer analysis of the Throne Speech reveals that a Trudeauesque leif motif runs through this document. Indeed, Trudeau-era tax and spend, spend, spend Liberalism leaps off of most pages. While the official title is "Building a Higher Quality of Life for All Canadians" the Throne Speech should be retitled "We're Rolling in Dough, Now Watch Us Spend It!"

In total, the Throne Speech (ghost-written by the Prime Minister) runs 24 pages. Only one half of one page - 3 paragraphs, 102 measly words - was devoted solely to the issue of tax cuts. And then only one meagre sentence pays lip service to the issue of our $575 billion national debt.

On the issue of taxes we were told that something would be done for Canadian families in next February's budget. This is hardly comforting news for long-suffering taxpayers if the Government's past record on the tax front is any indication. Even with their meagre tax cuts over the past two budgets, Canadians are still falling further behind.

We continue to spend more on income taxes than we do on food, clothing or shelter. The other contributing factor to your empty wallet is the fact that your CPP premiums are skyrocketing by 73%. This will suck an extra $48 billion out of Canadian pockets until 2003. Nor was their any mention of the fact that "bracket creep" (the non-indexation of the tax system) continues to cost Canadians $10 billion per year.

Indeed, bracket creep is especially cruel to working poor and low-income Canadians because it erodes the thresholds (in real terms) at which they qualify for their maximum Goods and Services Tax Credit or the Child Tax Benefit.

Yet there was no shortage of new spending promises. In concert with the provinces, Ottawa plans to "increase resources and further strengthen supports for early childhood development." Young people will be provided "with more opportunities to connect to the Canadian experience." And the feds will continue to make "strategic investments" (read: corporate welfare) to help businesses grow.

Of course, some initiatives outlined are worthy. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research will not only foster pure medical research but also measure just exactly what we're getting for the $83.5 billion we spend (public and private) annually on health care. Yet the majority of the spending commitments outlined in the Throne Speech are unwarranted and will cost billions.

What Chretien and crew fail to understand is that tax cutting is not inconsistent with a Children's Agenda. If you want to help this nation's impoverished children, help their impoverished parents by leaving more money in their pockets on a daily and weekly basis. To wit, substantive tax relief is the answer.

The other troubling aspect in Throne Speech is only a passing reference to debt-reduction. And the Government has only committed to reducing our debt-to-GDP ration. This means that the feds could simply let the economy grow and the debt-to-GDP ratio would continue to shrink. This is simply not good enough. A legislated timetable to reduce this debt over the next 30 or 40 years is necessary. Ensuring that the national debt is eliminated by the time today's children start raising their own kids would be the hallmark of a real Children's agenda.

But hey we're back to the 70s and the me-generation, why should you worry about tomorrow's kids It's clear that the Government doesn't.