PMJT: The First 100 Days

[PuckChaser]

Trudeau has to do the CCB, it was a hallmark promise. Where he's going to get the money for it, is anyone's guess. My money is that VAC will take a backseat, considering we lost $1B already from the not revenue neutral tax cut/hike.

 

[Altair]

I'm hoping not.

He has been doing a good job so far, so I don't expect him to blow it come budget time.

As far as where he gets the extra money from, well he has deficit spending in the works so it's simply a question of how big and for how long.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Let's see what promises trudeau can keep

Upholding promises shouldn't be optional.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Well by the sounds of it he's not going to get it from the revenue generated from selling MJ

 

[The Bread Guy]

Upholding promises shouldn't be optional.

It shouldn't be, but platforms are only written to get elected - budget time is when the REAL horse trading re:  what gets done when happens.

And that's true no matter what colour the stationery of the winning party is.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Well by the sounds of it he's not going to get it from the revenue generated from selling MJ

Ohhhh, dope.  For a second there I thought you meant "Michael Jackson".

 

[PuckChaser]

As far as where he gets the extra money from, well he has deficit spending in the works so it's simply a question of how big and for how long.

$10B was deficit spending just for infrastructure. Part of the CCB will be eaten dollar for dollar by UCCB, but CCB isn't taxable. Trudeau also was counting on his tax hike being revenue neutral, so its another $1B down, plus $500M a year for "climate change" guilt money". I make the median income in Canada, and will be getting close to $12K a year from CCB. If there's 500,000 families like me at the median with 3 kids, CCB for us alone costs $6B a year. Tax Free. CCB will be upwards of $10B that we can't just knit money to pay for, it's coming from something.

 

[a_majoor]

$10B was deficit spending just for infrastructure. Part of the CCB will be eaten dollar for dollar by UCCB, but CCB isn't taxable. Trudeau also was counting on his tax hike being revenue neutral, so its another $1B down, plus $500M a year for "climate change" guilt money". I make the median income in Canada, and will be getting close to $12K a year from CCB. If there's 500,000 families like me at the median with 3 kids, CCB for us alone costs $6B a year. Tax Free. CCB will be upwards of $10B that we can't just knit money to pay for, it's coming from something.

Frédéric Bastiat explained part of this through the parable of the broken windows: creating the illusion of economic activity by doing pointless and even counterproductive things, while not counting the opportunity costs of projects that need to be deferred because the money was spent for fixing the broken windows.

F.A Hayek also explained how "booms" inflated by credit bubbles created the seeds of their own demise (for an entertaining explanation I suggest Fear the Boom and Bust, which does this as a song....). Less amusing are real life examples like the Great Depression, Japan's "lost decade" and the 2008 economic crisis.

So ultimately you and I are paying for it now by declining standards of living, diminished economic growth and diminished expectations for our children and grandchildren, who will be stuck with the enormous bill. My remaining hope is some near future governments will look at the massive debts (both nationally and provincially) and simply hold their breath and write large portions off as "odious debt" (the entire reckless spending spree of the McGuinty/Wynn Liberals should be first on the block, but that's just me). While the repercussions of jettisoning hundreds of billions of dollars of odious debt on the market are alarming, the current state of affairs being the "start state" is even more so.


Odious Debt defined buy Alexander Nahum Sack, the legal scholar who formalized the concept:

When a despotic regime contracts a debt, not for the needs or in the interests of the state, but rather to strengthen itself, to suppress a popular insurrection, etc, this debt is odious for the people of the entire state. This debt does not bind the nation; it is a debt of the regime, a personal debt contracted by the ruler, and consequently it falls with the demise of the regime. The reason why these odious debts cannot attach to the territory of the state is that they do not fulfil one of the conditions determining the lawfulness of State debts, namely that State debts must be incurred, and the proceeds used, for the needs and in the interests of the State. Odious debts, contracted and utilised for purposes which, to the lenders' knowledge, are contrary to the needs and the interests of the nation, are not binding on the nation – when it succeeds in overthrowing the government that contracted them – unless the debt is within the limits of real advantages that these debts might have afforded. The lenders have committed a hostile act against the people, they cannot expect a nation which has freed itself of a despotic regime to assume these odious debts, which are the personal debts of the ruler.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>$10B was deficit spending just for infrastructure.

$5.25B for infrastructure (3 x $1.75B for each of "public", "green", and "social" infrastructure spending above what had been committed by CPC).  The purposes of the remaining $4.75B were never really directly explained; that extra amount was necessary to create the pot of money to fulfill other (non-infrastructure) promises which would require new funds.  (A defunct program or policy can't be turned back on for free.  You could go into the list of campaign promises and attach costs to all of them and find out whether the extra $5B is even enough.)  Talk of "public infrastructure" spending dominated the media and served its purpose of providing a smokescreen for the other, fuzzier types of "infrastructure" spending and non-infrastructure spending - basically, new program/policy spending.  The "plan" is basically to jack up program spending and hope that revenues catch up soon.

 

[PuckChaser]

The "plan" is basically to jack up program spending and hope that revenues catch up soon.

Maybe the MND should explain to the Liberal brain trust that's running this show the old mantra the CAF has used: Hope is not a valid COA.

 

[a_majoor]

Hope isn't a COA for Gerald Butts, funneling $5 billion to deserving Liberal crony's and clients is.

 

[PuckChaser]

Already gave a giant tax cut to those making $200K a year, upper middle class Liberal voters rejoiced.

 

[Altair]

Already gave a giant tax cut to those making $200K a year, upper middle class Liberal voters rejoiced.

As did everyone making over 45k a year, but let's never mind them.

Please, continue on with the LPC bashing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

If it's true, and, of course that's a Big IF, then this initiative ~ a Free(er) Trade deal with China ~ is very good public policy, but risky politics.

I can imagine, actually I can confidently predict that both the loony left and the ill-informed, anti-Trudeau right will be shouting and screaming (and slobbering) against this on equally poor social, economic, strategic and financial grounds.

But, again IF it's true, then

to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

 

[PuckChaser]

As did everyone making over 45k a year, but let's never mind them.

Please, continue on with the LPC bashing.

I'm a Sig Op, not a Math Op, but it doesn't take a genius to see someone making $200k at the top of the bracket is going to save a lot more money on tax than someone making $46k.

If he really wanted to cut taxes for the middle class, make a new bracket 45-100 at 20.5% and 100-200 at 22%. Then you have a very targeted tax break, and it starts becoming more revenue neutral.

But continue with your head in the sand, please.

 

[dapaterson]

I'm a Sig Op, not a Math Op, but it doesn't take a genius to see someone making $200k at the top of the bracket is going to save a lot more money on tax than someone making $46k.

If he really wanted to cut taxes for the middle class, make a new bracket 45-100 at 20.5% and 100-200 at 22%. Then you have a very targeted tax break, and it starts becoming more revenue neutral.

But continue with your head in the sand, please.

Have you even looked at the tax tables?  (http://www.kpmg.com/Ca/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/PersonalTaxRates/Federal-and-Provincial-Income-Tax-Rates-and-Brackets-and-Surtaxes-for-2015-and-2016.pdf)

The tax bracket for 2015 is 44,702–89,401, 22%.  That is what's being lowered to 20.5%.  So anyone who makes $89,402 or more will receive the exact same tax credit.  Or, in your words, it's a targeted tax cut.

But don't let the facts get in the way of your rant.

 

[Jarnhamar]

It sounds like the PM may be breaking yet another campaign "promise".  Apparently legalizing pot in Canada isn't as easy as he thought since it breaks a few global treaties.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-legalizing-pot-global-treaties-1.3390745

The Liberal government will have to do substantial work on the international stage before it can follow through on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to legalize marijuana, new documents suggest. That work will have to include figuring out how Canada would comply with three international treaties to which the country is a party, all of which criminalize the possession and production of marijuana.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

So, he's just discovering that which everyone rediscovers every year around this time: It's a lot easier to make a New Year resolution than to keep it, or in political terms, it's easy to make promises when in opposition, but a lot harder to implement them in office.  ;D

BTW, anybody noticed that the whole matter of "stoping the bombing campaign and bringing the CF-18's home" has completely dropped off the MSM radar screens?  Last I checked, the mission has now a little under two months to go but it is still going on with the CF-18's in full use. Not doing anything to extend it would bring it to an end, but I would hardly call that keeping your campaign promise.

 

[Journeyman]

Not doing anything to extend it would bring it to an end, but I would hardly call that keeping your campaign promise.

But he will. 

It's an act of omission rather than commission, but by doing nothing the aircraft come home by "policy commitment ENDEX" (rather than actual campaign ENDEX):  he can tell Canadians he brought the nasty war-mongering element home;  he can tell the Allies that Canada committed to the bombing campaign until March and lived up to our word;  he can devote attention to the next photo op.

 

[larry Strong]

As did everyone making over 45k a year, but let's never mind them.

Please, continue on with the LPC bashing.

You mean the extra $20 I am going to see on my pay check. What a ******* joke 

Cheers
Larry