Debt and Taxes

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's report yesterday was excellent. Let's look at this shall we?

Incoming splitting -- It was hinted in the last election, but now it appears to be coming to fruition. You couldn't find a more a family-friendly middleclass tax proposal than this. This will save families thousands each year. Hmmm.. methinks that amount money could be nicely applied to, I dunno, let's say... saving for a child's tuition!

Lowering the EI rate -- Saves me a few bucks each paycheque. Considering the EI fund is bloated, this is obviously a wise move.

Debt and Taxes --

And he promised to begin using the interest rate savings from paying down the
$480-billion national debt to reduce income taxes each year. Last year's
debt reduction of $13.2 billion translates into $700 million in personal
income tax savings — to be shared among all taxpayers — next year, Flaherty
said. By 2011, this measure would generate $1.4 billion in tax savings
annually, he said. Liberal finance critic John McCallum scoffed at this
measure, saying the tax cuts would be "absolutely trivial."

Absolutely trivial? Did anyone notice the big tax cut the Liberals made several years ago? I didn't. As well, how else do the Liberals propose cutting taxes? Isn't the point of reducing debt to free up interest money to help pay for tax cuts? Duh. Sounds absolutely trivial to me.

Doing less --

Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said that Ottawa's plan to pay down more
federal debt and cut income taxes will leave Ontario in the lurch.
"I don't see any help there," Sorbara told reporters. "I see the potential of incurring
more expense because the federal government is doing less."

Exactly. Less. Oh, poor Liberal Ontario. Too afraid to cut their own spending I see. Not that the Liberals would ever cut taxes in that province, but now they can't go begging to the feds anymore and will actually have to do something instead of passing the buck.

Tearing down welfare walls --

Flaherty also said he would like to bring in a tax break to help low-income
earners who are struggling with the so-called "welfare wall," in which taking a
job results in a loss of social benefits that leaves them worse off than before.

Ah, there's something that would really help a lot of people, especially single parents.

Notice how this update doesn't give any ammo to the Liberals or NDP to say "the Tories are giving tax cuts for the rich". The Liberals can only complain that the cuts don't go far enough and the NDP can only say, as MP Libby Davies said, that these measures will gut important social programs (although there's no plans to gut social programs).

Methinks the middle-class voters the Conservatives have locked up can read through this socialist tripe.

I'm already looking forward to the next election.