Have you heard about for the most important budget ever.
Let me see, we have radio ads in the 905 warning us that the coalition might still be alive, apparently television ads in Quebec linking Ignatieff and Dion. We have a finance minister that has met with every possible group he could gather for a photo op. He even pulled together an ad hoc advisory committee of business leaders and met with them once (Do you think Carol Taylor regrets quitting her day job?) and now after months of consultation, it is time for the most important budget in Canada’s history, ever.
Of course most of the details have already been leaked. So far we know that the budget expenditures will total $34 billion in 2009-10 and $30 billion in 2010-11. With various ministers playing key roles informing us, we have been advised that the budget will include:
- $1.5 billion to help workers acquire new skills
- $2 billion to build new housing for lower-income Canadians
- $250 million to create a new regional economic development agency for southern Ontario
- $160 million boost to cultural spending
- $300 million worth of initiatives to boost Canada’s tourism sector
- $1-billion fund to help unemployed workers in small and rural communities
And as for tax cuts, Harper personally informed Canwest News (exclusively, we are told) that some of the tax measures would be permanent, but only a moderate and affordable amount of them though and others will be introduced on a temporary basis to deal with the fiscal crisis.
About the only thing we don’t know is whether Flaherty will make any mention of his foot wear and if as some have rumored that both he and Harper will switch to red ties to symbolize the deficit spending...
and the blood that is pouring from my ears, from listening to all this bullshit.
JAWL
5 comments:
"And as for tax cuts, Harper personally informed Canwest News (exclusively, we are told) that some of the tax measures would be permanent,"
How do you make a 'tax measure' permanent? Are not all 'tax measures' temporary until the government decides to increase/decrease the basic tax rate?
croghan27
You would think. In this case his definition probably has more to do with his ego, since the Liberals and NDP are against it and he is playing for his conservative base.
You would think. In this case his definition probably has more to do with his ego, since the Liberals and NDP are against it and he is playing for his conservative base.
I've been wondering why they keep describing the tax changes as "permanent" too.
Do you figure the $160 million for cultural spending includes $48 million for the reversal of recent arts and culture cuts? And does it include the $40 million commitment to Asper's Human Rights Museum? That would account for half of this "new" stimulus to the sector.
I am not as familiar with other federal funding programs but it seems to me like an odd shopping list. For example, is the 1.5 million for training or the 1 billion for the small/rural unemployed part of a comprehensive enhancement to the EI program?
That's the problem with the system, the opposition has a very short time (about 12 hours) to go thru the details line by line before they have to vote. Look at all the crap they put thru last time (40 yr. no money down mortgages etc)
In the end it doesn't matter, it is all about perception based on the whether the latest ad in the case of the cons or media representation in the case of the Liberals has affected the polls.
As for the recession and recovery it really depends on whether the US starts buying our goods again.
I feel like a sandal maker living in a suburb of Rome during the fall of the empire.
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