Defeat this silly Budget - a Free Vote needed!
Update
Wed May 27/09
What a surprise!
Re: Flaherty sees deficit rising to $50-billion - Minister blames recession, aid to automakers
National Post, Paul Vieira with Nicolas Van Praet,
Defeat Budget!
32.4 /49.6% total 4yr incr. in Personal/Corp.Income Taxes
with ONLY 7.5% ttl 4yr inc. in Prgm Spending is Ludicrous
Dear Ed,
It's good to see two MP's deciding to vote their own minds on the Harper/Flaherty budget -a document truly antithetical to any Reform/Alliance/CPC platform and an insult to anyone who has read it.
I don't fancy the 2 NFLD-Lab MP's reasoning but at least they're read the monstrosity (or been briefed I suppose)
Any MP who does vote for it (remembering that Iggy has killed any possibility of the 3 Stooges Coalition of 2008 - he's going to let the Rt Hon Mr Harper "wear this recession") is supporting a 2009/10 through 2013/14 " 4 year recovery" that requires:
--PERSONAL Income taxes (Table 4.5 on Pg 220) to rise by 32.4% to $145.95Bn
PLUS simultaneously
--Corporate Income Tax (Table 4.5) to rise 49.6% to $39.48Bn
PLUS simultaneously
--Public Debt Charges (Table 1.1 & 4.4) to rise 34.2%($10.1Bn) to $39.6Bn
while
--Total Program Expenses (includes PDCharges) (Table 4.6 on Pg 225) to rise only 10.9%($24.975 incl $10.1 PDC) to $254.1Bn over 4 years!!
So the NET increase in Program Expenditures (ie not-incl PDC) will increase only ~7.5% ($14.875Bn on ~200Bn of 2009/10 Programs) [calculated from Tables 1.1 & 4.6]
THAT's a GRAND total of ~7.5% increase in Program Spending over 4 Full Fiscal years or less than ~2% per annum.
While Total (Personal+Corp+Other) Income Taxes rise by 35.9% (8.98% annual)
I think that is a truly fanciful proposal.
Nevermind the successive 4.6%, 6.4%, 6.2%, 5.05%GDP projections that fuel all this nonsense.
I think any one who votes for the Budget is hopelessly stupid or very poorly briefed ... or an MP who thinks that his/her constituents are stupid/poorly informed.
Who is YOUR MP? have you discussed this with her/him?