Federal Budget
It looks to me like a little something for everyone (except deficit hawks but how many of those do we have in Canada?) in an effort to prop up a government that has lost the confidence of the House and the people and distract from their attempt to destroy all other political parties a few weeks back.
Personally I suspect this new budget will actually be a bit of a boon for me and my family.
It includes tax cuts to low and middle income earners with an increase in personal tax exemption and raising the threshold for the 2 lowest personal income tax brackets.
(They keep using the word “personal”; I hope this still applies if we file jointly which we plan to do for the first time this year)
They haven’t released all the details but they also mentioned raising phase-out levels for National Child Benefit and Canada Child Tax Benefit so if that means some of our government funding for daycare gets restored/increased, well, I’ll be ready to do cartwheels. And maybe book a vacation. Seriously, daycare is easily our second largest expense after rent. Anything that puts a substantial dent in daycare costs, say a couple hundred dollars, would allow Mindi to pay off her debt, allow me to rebuild my crumbling savings, and then let us start serious car shopping.
Paying off debt, rebuilding savings, buying a car, going on vacation – these are all good for the economy which, it turns out, is now officially in a recession in Canada. So at least when it comes to my family the changes will do what they are intended for – generating economic activity. I know, paying off debt is the opposite of that but the money is owed to my mom and not a bank so it isn’t changing a balance sheet; it’s putting money back in the hands of another member of my family who will likely spend or invest it.
But is this enough to buy me off and make me forget what the Conservatives tried to do in December? Thankfully I’m not the one who has to decide. I suppose an ideal outcome for me personally would be for the budget to pass but then have the government fall on a non-confidence vote immediately thereafter. I get my presents and a coalition government or election that way.
I guess we’ll see but now it feels somewhat like a win-win scenario for me personally no matter which way this thing goes. Of course it’s still too early for me to even have a preliminary impression of how our tax filing would go this year anyways so my vantage point could yet be skewed.
