Soooo,
I just read the Federal Budget...................sigh..............
A document long on verbiage and making money disappear, and low on substantive investments in a fairer and more prosperous society.
There are investments in 'affordable home ownership' that largely accomplish nothing useful.
A program for first-time buyers would see CMHC participation in their mortgage, resulting in modestly lower carrying costs (I believe the aim was just $300 per month less for a typical qualifying mortgage).
Except, that in so far as this gooses the housing market it will drive up prices, largely erasing the benefit.
For a nation that has relatively high housing costs and surprisingly high home ownership levels notwithstanding that fact, this is not only an unnecessary move, but also an unhelpful one.
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Support for ongoing education includes a new leave program of up to 4 weeks under EI.......(wow, lots of degrees and diplomas that'll help with)........
Also an expensive new education 'account' of sorts with the gov't depositing $250 per year on your behalf to a limit of 5k.
This does nothing tangible to reduce the cost of education in general nor is its sufficiently targeted at those for whom the cost is an acute barrier.
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Seniors get a new exemption on GIS income....if its working income............WTF, why are we qualifying......you don't get GIS unless your total income is relatively low. I don't care how you get it or who you got it from or why.
The object should simply be to raise the threshold where it starts being taxed back! That's it! One simple, easy to understand, no hassle to access change.
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Claims of enhanced tax fairness are mostly gibberish, doing little or nothing to curtail myriad legal tax shelters that predominantly benefit the wealthy.
The one somewhat useful change reduces the scope of a tax credit for stock-based compensation.......by limiting it to a max value of 200k!
This is not a screed about taxing the rich or anyone else more, its that fairness demands simplicity and transparency in taxes.
Its hard to have an honest conversation about who is paying what and whether that is fair, when the tax code is muddled beyond recognition with variable rates and loopholes.
Clean this bloody crap up. The size of the tax code can and should be cut by 90% (at least). Then a simple, streamlined, progressive bracket system will make everything clear as day.
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Pharmacare gets a mention........some funding for a new agency for joint purchases which may be helpful; but no new money to actually help anyone purchase any drug before 2022-23 (500M)
with funding targeting rare/expensive diseases.
We could all debate at some length what can and should be funded, and how to do most effectively; but if we agree the above could be useful, given the inordinate and larger than needed size of this year's (2019-2020) deficit, it would
be nice if it paid for something more tangible, like the above, this year.
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Given current projected revenues; it appears the government was on pace to have a deficit under 10B for the current year, with a reasonable shot at balance in the year ahead.
Instead, we are going to rack up more debt for at least another 4 years; which I might be able to support if I could see that it was achieving a great deal of tangible benefit........
but I can't.
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How genuinely disillusioning.
Feel free to depress yourself with the source material here:
Homepage for Budget 2019 and related information.
budget.gc.ca