Both the Liberals and CPC are proposing tax cuts to the lowest tax bracket:
much of the benefit of this tax cut will go to the best-off: they get the same tax cut as everyone else, on the first $57,375 of their income. As for the poorest-off, they will get no benefit whatever. They don’t earn enough to pay taxes. ... Neither is it likely to have much impact on those in the lowest tax bracket. They don’t have much money to save or invest, for starters.
Coyne goes on to suggest the tax cut is pandering: it won't help our productivity, spur investment, or help those who need it. He suggests that directed cuts would achieve those goals. I suggest increasing taxes on higher brackets to cover the $6-15 billion loss.
I suppose it’s more disappointing coming from Mr. Carney. The book on him was supposed to be that he was the principled egghead, the guy with the central banking pedigree and the PhD in economics who’d arrived, with impeccable timing, just as the crisis did, as if the moment had been made for him, when his dull decency and lack of political savvy would prove advantages rather than drawbacks.
But with each day and each cynical policy proposal, Mr. Carney shows he’s more than willing to play the political game, with the same all-consuming lust for power as any 20-years-in-the-game hack.
Speaking of 20-years-in-the-game hacks, Mr. Poilievre, too, has much to answer for. Calculating and obnoxious he may be, but the book on him was always that, underneath it all, he was a dyed-in-the-wool free-marketer, someone who, for better or worse, really would take a bracing Friedmanite approach to the economy based on prices, competition and incentives, rather than regulations, subsidies and free lunches.
Instead, what do we get from both party leaders? Scrapping the carbon tax, and unfunded tax giveaways. Truly this is an election for the ages, a historic choice between dull but unprincipled and nasty but opportunistic.
Canada has the lowest National Debt to GDP ratio out of all the G8/G7 partners, and while cutting taxes would take money out of the federal purse, it would increase spending power on the street at a critical time, without having to run the money printers. At a federal purse level there is ample room to take a hit, this can be offset with bond sales etc , while the Country pivots to new trade relations/partners.
You need to spend money to make money. And I'd trust a Canadian banker with that over some empty suit who can only complain.