Tying future hands.

(From Financial Post)

Byline: THOMAS WAGNER

Jim Flaherty's Economic and Fiscal Update provided a lot more than this document has normally delivered in this past. With a promised annual personal tax cut funded by interest-rate savings resulting from debt reduction due to end-of-year surpluses -- $700 million for this year alone -- the Conservatives have put the federal government on a slower path of program spending. Taxpayers will now be rewarded with tax cuts accommodated by a hard-won war over debt.

The Liberals, who are the only other party capable of forming a future government, will find the Conservatives' fiscal plan not only constrains government spending in the next several years but shackles future Liberal governments as…