I will be locked in a building but not to study the budget, I will leave that to Larry MacDonald (he is actually going to be locked away with the press corps for that very reason). I am taking an exam tomorrow (my job search continues), but Larry gets to pour over the minutia of the budget along with a bunch of other “sweaty journalists”, which sounds like more fun than I am going to have.
Budget Leaks Already?
Not from any of my sources, but the regular financial press is predicting the following:
- A $64 Billion deficit running for the next two years, which will effectively obliterate the surpluses from the past 4 or 5 years, but I guess we need to do this (maybe).
- $2 billion for social housing, which is good if it makes it into the right hands
- $1.5 billion for job retraining which is important given we have an entire auto industry to retrain
- Billions more in aid to farmers, which is good, considering we need food as well.
- $7 billion on new infrastructure projects, which hopefully will use the correct concrete and not just do “slap dash” jobs to create as much infrastructure in a short time (we are kind of paying for those decisions in the 60’s now).
- Talk of tax credits as well, but very vague statements about those so far, so stay tuned there.
NDP Already Hate the Budget
I always am concerned when I hear someone say they “hate” something they haven’t even heard, but that is what Jack “where did my coalition go” Layton has said, that the NDP will vote against the budget. That means that if the Liberals want to topple the government, they don’t have to do too much (only get the Bloc Quebecois to come on side and that will be it).
Is it a good thing to have another election in such troubled times, or have a coalition take over? My opinion says no, but I also have been wrong before too.
“Thin” Throne Speech
Four pages does seem a little “thin” on content, but then again, we already have had one throne speech a while ago, so maybe there wasn’t much new to add to what was previously said?
