THE Leaked Liberal Policy Red Book

[Canuck E Stan]

The Liberal Policy Red Book has been leaked before they got a chance to present it themselves.Here are some observatiions to the Book:

Show me the tax cuts

Guess what folks - the Liberal platform has been leaked and thrown up on the web in living color. Leaker Ezra Levant had some fun with it, and challenged his readers to “wordsearch” different words and see how often they came up. Typical Ezra, he searched “notwithstanding clause” (zero appearances), “western alienation” (zero) and “democratic deficit” (also zero).

So I searched “tax cut”, and found only 4 lonely little matches at pages 50 and 51 (the whole document is 85 pages). Here they are, with an attendant Taxpayer Reality Check for good measure.

“Liberal governments… (have provided) a $100 billion tax cut over five years beginning in the year 2000.”

Hmm, not quite. $20.7-billion of this amount included the ending of bracket creep (for those of you who aren’t tax nerds, that’s a policy whereby tax brackets aren’t indexed to inflation, so you pay more and more as your wage increases push you into higher brackets). Then there’s the whopping $28-billion hike in Canadian Pension Plan premiums between 2000 and 2004. Finally, the government incorrectly identifies almost $6-billion in Canada Child Tax Benefit payments as tax relief, instead of calling them what they are: spending.

So the real five-year tax cut amounts to $46-billion. While this is an impressive figure, it is less than half of what Paul and company claim to have lopped off your bill.

Same page,

“The Martin government announced a $30 billion tax cut in the November 2005 Economic and Fiscal Update.”

True, but middle-class tax relief doesn’t kick in until 2010. And with the likelihood of a minority government, what are the chances the next administration will still be around by then?

Page 51

“A reduction in personal income taxes is the best way to deliver a given tax cut to individuals since it gives people complete freedom to choose how to use the extra dollars.”

Freedom is good. We like freedom. I don’t disagree with the Libs on this one - so why are they waiting until 2010 to cut taxes?

Same page,

“Nonetheless, it is hard for people to translate the abstract description of a personal tax cut… into a meaningful picture of dollars saved on one’s year-end tax bill.”

Well, duuuh, if you’re only offering tax relief in tiny phased-in dribs and drabs as opposed to a clear, broad-based, immediate cut that people can actually understand. Of course, if politicians were always clear, there would be no need for groups like the CTF to explain this stuff to people. So thank you Paul Martin for giving me something to talk about today.

Friday, the Tories will reveal their full platform. That is, if someone doesn’t leak it first too! Stay tuned….

[geoffrey]

The Red Book had more crediability coming from Ezra into my Inbox last night then when Martin presented it today. Martin should have just left it at that, but nope, he had to speak and destroy any chance of it being taken seriously.

[Hicksey]

The Red Book had more crediability coming from Ezra into my Inbox last night then when Martin presented it today. Martin should have just left it at that, but nope, he had to speak and destroy any chance of it being taken seriously.

Martin is so full of himself he thinks all he has to do is open his moouth to curry favor with Canadians. To him what he's saying is irrelevant.

[shoop]

Zero mention of removing the Fed's ability to use the notwithstanding clause.

Any guesses as to when they came up with that one? On the ride over to the debate?

[Hicksey]

Zero mention of removing the Fed's ability to use the notwithstanding clause.

Any guesses as to when they came up with that one? On the ride over to the debate?

I honestly believe it was an act of desperation during the debate.

[Canuck E Stan]

I think Martin's handlers told him just before the debates to

"Talk about not standing for the separatist cause" but he heard it as

do away with the "nonwithstanding clause"

So now to save face......

[Hicksey]

I think Martin's handlers told him just before the debates to

"Talk about not standing for the separatist cause" but he heard it as

do away with the "nonwithstanding clause"

So now to save face......

Either way ... Martin can't run his own election campaign let alone a whole country.