During the 2004 federal-election campaign, I interviewed a brainy economic consultant named Kwangyul Peck, who was running for the Liberals in Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.

Peck suggested that if Stephen Harper became prime minister, some residents of the riding would lose their homes.

It was an astonishing claim--and it was ridiculed by his Conservative opponent, James Moore, now the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Today, the Harper government will include a $34-billion deficit in its budget.

Some right-of-centre governments--notably the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations, as well as the Brian Mulroney regime--have demonstrated a knack for running up huge deficits, forcing future politicians to take draconian actions to address the imbalance.

These right wingers bled the beast--which is how they see government--so there was nothing left for their successors to work with.

It appears as though Stephen Harper is no different---though, to be fair, he is being egged on to go into deficit spending by the federal Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois.

On budget day, I felt it was worth reviewing Peck's key points during the 2004 campaign:

* Harper's proposed tax cuts at that time would sharply reduce government revenues. (After becoming prime minister in 2006, Harper cost the treasury billions by shaving two points off the Goods and Services Tax. Expect more tax cuts in today's budget.)

* Peck predicted that Harper would jack up military spending and increase health spending.

* As a result, Peck claimed, the economy would have to grow by 38 percent per year to keep the country out of deficit after the expenditure increases and tax cuts. Peck said that this was not likely to occur. That meant deficit financing: the government would have to borrow to pay for its operations.

* "The minute Harper gets into power and starts borrowing money, the interest rate will go up," Peck predicted. "The minute people in New York realize what Harper's up to, they start dumping Canadian dollars."

* Peck forecast that the Bank of Canada would have to defend the Canadian dollar by increasing interest rates. This is exactly precisely what happened during the Mulroney years, which hammered real-estate markets when homeowners were faced with higher monthly mortgage payments.

* Peck suggested that interest rates could double or triple thanks to Harper's fiscal policies, causing people in Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam to lose their homes.

Four years later, the stakes are very high with this budget. Some economists, such as Princeton's Paul Krugman, have argued that massive stimulus packages are necessary to prevent a depression.

Others have expressed fears that governments around the world will dump taxpayers' money into dying industries, offering few long-term benefits.

We saw that in B.C. in the late 1990s when Glen Clark's NDP government poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Skeena Cellulose, which operated a pulp mill in Prince Rupert.

Can Harper be trusted to do the right thing for the country or will he choose the politically expedient thing when he brings in his deficit?

To date, he hasn't demonstrated a great appetite for the types of expenditures that stimulate employment and boost productivity, such as daycare and postsecondary education. So far, we haven't seen any indication that he's ready to move in any new direction in these areas.