OnTheIce OnTheIce:
How did they cheat?
Why not just raise all taxes to ensure we're in surplus?
Go back and read the first paragraph of the story.
I can't quote it right now because the
Globe and Mail's website is down, but the article starts off by noting how the Conservatives had to raid the contingency fund and sell government assets in the form of GM shares.
In other words, they had to resort to money collected specifically for the unemployed, one-time sales, and money set aside for unexpected downturns in order to balance the books. Those are not regular sources of government revenue that we collect from taxes, tariffs, and so forth, and are not typically considered part of the budgeting process.
Aside from
the issues I have with income splitting, I would also note that, yet again, no one ever seems to want to talk about exactly what kinds of government programs and services they are willing to give up in exchange for reduced taxes.
Are they willing to risk a greater risk of the food they eat being tainted?Are they willing to risk greater water contamination, which will potentially damage Canada's environmental image?Are they willing to take a greater risk of getting killed if something goes pear-shaped and their lives are in danger in an emergency?Are they willing to accept that our veterans will have to wait longer to get the services they need when frontline staff are burned out and overworked?Are they willing to wait longer to talk to people from the Canada Revenue Agency when they have questions about their tax returns or need information to run their businesses?Aside from all that, what Harper and Oliver seem to have forgotten is how conservative political projects need tax dollars to function, too.
Where is the money going to come from for the fight against ISIS in the Middle East?
Where is the money going to come from for new military acquisitions?
Where is the money going to come from to accommodate the increased incarceration rate resulting from Harper's changes to the Criminal Code?
Where is the money going to come from to pay off all of the $130 billion-plus in extra debt Harper has accumulated?
Just for the record, I support all of these things that Harper is doing. When it comes to criminal justice, the military and helping to fight psychos like ISIS, I am very much on the right wing of things. However, my supporting Harper's actions here doesn't mean I am not concerned about how he expects to pay for all these things without putting us back in the red.
Let's not forget that, even with all his cuts, Harper still needed to raid special funds the same way he used to criticize the Liberals for, use one-time sources of revenue, and dip into emergency rainy-day funds.
As Scott Clark and Peter DeVries helpfully point out...$1:
Had the contingency reserve been kept to its usual $3 billion level, there would be a small deficit of $600 million. This deficit would have been $1.6 billion without the GM sales — even higher, had Oliver made no change in the forecasting methodology.
And as for the EI fund, here's
Justin Ling quoting Oliver himself:$1:
When VICE asked Oliver how he could justify raiding the EI fund, he said that Ottawa didn't need it to balance the budget. And, besides, Oliver said, their decision to pluck cash from the EI fund was nothing "compared to the Liberals."
All Oliver can offer is the tired old "but the Liberals did it too!" defence.
In other words, Harper would have failed yet again to meet his balanced budget commitments without cheating by draining revenue sources that either aren't always available or aren't supposed to be used for these purposes.