That wasn’t a “Liberal” budget. One could expect this from ditherers I suppose, or from a tenuous minority government like the Liberals are (especially when they have no cajones) but that’s where the good news stops.
Faced with a forced election, the Liberals chose to try to appease all sides and be good suck-ups. They sucked-up to the conservatives as much as they could stomach, which wasn’t much; and they sucked up to the socialists in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois, which was easy since they’re all fraternal socialist twins.
Left to their own devices—with a strong majority—can you just imagine how socialist this budget would have been?
Spending outstripped tax relief by three to one. This is a spend spend spend budget with absolutely massive increases in government spending and no doubt in the size of “government” in general. Massive quantities of taxpayer cash being allotted to programs and concerns for which there are no plans in place. Military spending, which was desperately needed, is phased in over a thousand years (it takes ten years for military spending to turn into military might).
Tax relief, if you can call it that (no, you can’t), is phased in over eons such that it’s a joke.
Tim Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun says “Conservatism is extinct”—in light of the paltry nod to fiscal conservatism, and the seemingly thumbs-up review by Conservative leader Stephen Harper (which also made me look at my wife in amazement). Is he a member of their party now? I’m entirely unsure.
No one left to curb gov’t spending
I’ll say one thing about yesterday’s federal budget—conservatism in Canada is officially dead. The Liberal government laid out a five-year fiscal blueprint yesterday that will see overall spending increase 4.5% a year from 2003 to 2009—about twice the rate of inflation.
There are virtually no tax cuts for most Canadians in the plan, unless you include the $1.33 a month a typical single earner is expected to save when the personal exemption on income taxes is adjusted up a micro-notch.
There’s a windfall for new socialist initiatives, including more money for government child care, arts and culture budgets and the new Kyoto Protocol industry.
Canadian workers and employers will not be repaid the $46 billion Ottawa owes them in employment insurance premiums.
And the CBC is getting tens of millions more of your money.
Despite that, there are almost no voices of opposition to what can only be described as a big-government budget, one that seeks to intrude further into the lives of working Canadian families by telling them how their money should be spent.
That kind of wild spending used to draw howls of protest from conservative quarters. No more.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper applauded the budget, calling the blueprint’s main priorities “conservative priorities.”
Wow. When did high taxes, EI ripoffs and large government spending increases become conservative priorities? And don’t even start with the so-called tax cuts.
The Liberals propose to increase the personal exemption to $10,000 by 2009 from $8,012. That’s the amount you don’t get taxed on. It means a typical single-earner saves about $16 a year in 2006 and $192 in 2009.
That’s not even tokenism. […]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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