What will be in the budget?

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I'm a tenant so it did not affect me but still this would be a huge broken promise if that gets/stays dead.

There would be a lot of angry middle-class voters left hold the bill for their new kitchens. Outrageous! "Shame!" they will cry.

BS-- lots of BS-- to answer the opening question.

The actual contents of the Budget will be anti-climactic. Or would be, except that by the time its tabled, any hint of mystery or surprise will have been long lulled away.

The only drama will be in the crass manipulation. That would make a great movie, but you'd never know it living through the real thing at ground zero.

There is little response to this thread even though it is an important topic.That says a lot about this government and in itself proves a point. These are difficult times this should be an importtant budget.

I think the reason there are few responses is this asks what will be in the budget -- if the OP asked what will not be in the budget perhaps more would jump in-- but you can arrive at an answer through deduction so that is what I'll do:

This government does not believe in leadership or a role for government in society so the budget will not contain:

1) Any plan or initiative that will do anything about global warming-- the government still does not beleive in the science although it accepts that it can no longer say so out loud.

2) Any attempt to address an industrial strategy for Canada to address the restructuring that is going on now. Most economists now understand that much of the country is not going to recover from the changes we saw last year.

3) There will be no plan to secure social supportsboth income and health that this country needs-- there may be somethign on pensions but we should be worried that the best they would do is nothing-- more likely there will be some element that will leave wwealthy people better off at the expense of the rest

4) There will be no attempt to secure a sound financial footing for the government. The recession was exactly what they wanted. The Conservatives since they came to power have been trying to strip the fiscal capacity of the federal government as a way to limit its involvement in the economy. They now have a deficit that they would have created regardless through military spending and tax cuts. The recession and stimulus spending just make it easer to affect their retreat from governance.

What the budget may contain are measures to centralize power further-- perhaps as I suggested they will come back to using austerity to take away financing for political parties again-- hard to say. They may cut the budget officer's money-- this kind of thing.

I'm starting to not even trust the NDP anymore.

That does mean no new stimulus spending. But goverment expenditures will still increase, while revenues still lag.

Even if they brought in tax increases, another couple years minimum of deficits is guaranteed. What they are denying- what the preformances capped with the tabling of the Budget is all about- is that deficits will never end without restoring revenue they took out with tax cuts.

So the narrative of the next couple months will remain of "these are challenging times that require a steady hand. You know who that is. Tax increases will not be required, because of trimming spending and economic growth."

And the ballot question: whether or not you like or approve of us, do you want us in charge, or the Three Stooges?

Here's the potential big flie in the ointment:

Flaherty's economic plan blasted
He can't balance books without raising taxes or slashing spending, economic experts warn

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The country's budget watchdog and some of Canada's leading economists are contradicting Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, saying he cannot balance the books without raising taxes or slashing spending.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page warned Monday Canada could be headed back to the financial bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s when the country was crippled by public debt.

"We are going to have to take drastic measures, either spending reduction or tax increase, to get us back to balances," said Page, known for his outspoken assessment of government spending.

He said Ottawa doesn't appear to have any fiscal targets in mind "and that's not a good place to be."

Page will deliver a report Wednesday that will look at the next five years and spell out the magnitude of the "structural" deficit and - if not checked by spending reduction or tax increases - the potential negative impact on Canada's struggling economy.

A structural deficit is the result of a fundamental imbalance in government receipts and expenditures, as opposed to short-term factors such as cyclical downturns.

The Conservatives took billions of dollars out of government revenue by slashing two percentage points from the GST, effectively eliminating any budget cushion bequeathed it by the Liberals.

Despite how damaging this would seem to be for the Harper/Flaherty narrative, I think the most it will be undermined is that it takes Harper's hand away from the button for calling an election right after the Budget is tabled.

The minimum we can expect the narrative to achieve is that it will have successfully changed the channel completely. IE, even if they can't shout Page and other critics down and be in a position to call the election... the story will be on their ground, with the detainee scandal and prorogation of democracy sidelined. ... And the next round of whipping Ignatieff and cutting him down still further- set up for the election- will proceed anyway.

Well you can count on regular Canadians not being in the budget as government gets ready to seriously cut services out of the equation.  As government incentives to help out its good buddies will leave Canadians in dire straights as all those recessionary measures were for not.  Expect the Canadian economy to drop flat on its face as Harper's solution for high unemployment is bringing in qualified people from other countries to buy those homes that are foreclosing because Canadians have lost their jobs and interest rates again begin to climb.  And it makes you wonder what Canadians are crying about as many say with their degrees they are lucky if they can find a job serving coffee and making $6.00 training wage in BC as Harper claims there is a real shortage of qualified people in Canada so Harper is beefing up immigarions and going to  bring in boatloads of qualified people.  What a way to burst a bubble.