"but he chastised Harper for doing something similar."
No he did not. This is another total fabrication.
His comments towards Harper had to do with tax breaks and monthly allowances for high income earners. Nothing to do with staffing at the PM residence.
"A reduction of 1½% on federal tax is a pittance. "
???
I am looking at a guy like Valve, earning nearly $90,000 in retirement. The new program will SAVE him almost $600.00 in income tax.
Is that fair? Is it too little? Is it too much?
What a miscalculation by the Liberals Pierre! The revenue neutral on their tax the rich to lower tax on the middle class has turned into a 1.2 billion dollar deficit boondoggle.
A boondoggle is a project that is considered a useless waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy or political motivations.
Oh well thanks anyways.
" tax the rich to lower tax on the middle class has turned into a 1.2 billion dollar deficit "
OK - so lowering income tax on a large percentage of Canadians while adding tax on the top 1% earners costs $1.2 billion
What is wrong with that? Back in 2006/2007 the Harper government cut the GST from 7% to 5% (in two steps) at a cost of more than $6 billion for each percentage point - over $12 billion in total - with the largest portion of the cut going to high spenders. Those two cuts were largely responsible for most annual federal deficits in the following years.
One saves a lot more tax GST/HST buying a Cadillac than a second hand Ford. Who really benefited the most from the GST tax cut?
What is best? Spending $12 billion or $1.2 billion with the benefits going mostly to the "middle class"?
Background information on the Harper GST cuts from a source generally favourable to the Conservatives:
"going to exceed his 10 billion a year deficit "
There is no doubt in my mind that the deficit will be in the area of $15 billion (give or take a few billion either way).
$10 billion from the promises made during the election campaign and an extra $5 billion to account for the structural deficit left by the Harper government (as per independent budget office). Harper knowingly lied about the size of the deficit while in office and during the campaign and it would be unfair to blame the new government for that repeated lie.
Conservative supporters are always quick to use the word "promise" when dealing with other parties. In my book, when dealing with large numbers, governments are dealing with "targets" or "goals".
The word "promise" is grossly over-used.
"every segment of the population"
Another distortion of facts.
Every independent study made at the time clearly stated that the drop in GST favoured high income earners as they are the ones spending the most on taxable products and services.
Most economists (not associated with the Conservative Party) concluded that the 2% GST drop and loss of over $12 billion to the federal coffers was bad economic policy.
It is much more efficient and fairer to tax spending than income.
Harper should have done what the Liberals are doing : lower income taxes on earnings instead of lowering GST on spending.
"tax break doesn't have conditions that apply to get it"
No. It is a straight forward reduction of 1.5% to the tax rate.
"Nice Xmas card from Rona!"
I do not get any Christmas card from any political party at any level. I like to remain independent.
