In yesterday’s provincial budget, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the creation of a Move Ontario fund.
It’s all about spending tons of taxpayer dollars on things like subway extensions, on the TTC, on developing mass transit in places like Mississauga and Brampton and on road and bridge improvements in northern Ontario.
But as I was watching Finance Minister Dwight Duncan give the details yesterday, it occurred to me that the only thing this budget will move is investment right out of the province
After all, the budget did next to nothing about cutting Ontario’s high personal or corporate tax rates.
And until those taxes are cut, Ontario’s economic performance will suffer no matter how many subways and bridges McGuinty builds.
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4 comments:
I think Ontario should cut taxes, but balancing the budget should be a first priority, which would require spending cuts. At least the federal Liberals had the guts to make the spending cuts in the 90s in order to balance the budget.
It wouldn't have required spending cuts to balance this budget. When you look at the sum of the new spending, the total deficit, and consider the political points of the province's first balanced budget only months before an election (which of course allows the Liberals to talk up the fact that it's all the PCs fault) it's pretty obvious this budget is in the red only because Dalton wants it to be.
Matt, spending cuts?? Where'd you do your math. It would ismply have required no new spending.
Effectively, they have borrowed (creating a deficit) to spend on transit in Toronto where the council isn't smart enough to even study the budget unless somenone spends $100m or more to create a board game for the freakin' kids on council.
Actually Matt, no new spending would only allow for a balanced budget a few years down the road. To balance it this year, it would require spending cuts, while holding off on tax cuts until the budget is balanced. That is what I think they should have done. Taxes need to come down in Ontario, but balancing the budget must take priority over tax cuts and definitely over new spending.
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