Looks like Canada is being neoconned.

[Elspeth]

This is painfully familiar to us here south of the great white north.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8235

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty boasted that his consecutive third budget reduced tax levels to what they were fifty years ago in the Diefenbaker era. This projected a sentimental yearning for a time when Canadians paid privately for such services as health care and post-secondary education, when public transit was peripheral, and when getting tough on crime included capital punishment. This was the zeal of Ontario's Common Sense Revolution of the 1990s when Flaherty was a minister of that provincial government, and played a key role in gutting the fiscal and administrative capacity for redistributional policies of the Ontario state. Flaherty and Harper have sought to recreate key aspects of this model at the national level.

Neoliberalism and the Tax Cuts Agenda The Conservatives have done so particularly by generalized tax cuts and breaks that seek to build populist support behind their project of a smaller welfare state, expanded military and law and order government. This budget continues the largest tax giveaways in Canadian history that began with Flaherty's first budget in May 2006. Although the corporate subsidies will continue, particularly for the defence and nuclear energy sectors, and some smaller special measures for manufacturing industries, the Conservative emphasis is on generalized corporate and personal tax breaks. This is a core neoliberal position: who needs a subsidy when you simply don't have to pay tax? This, of course, works well for corporations with sufficient cash flow for reinvestment and individuals with income to save 'surplus' money. Budget 2008 was billed as "Responsible Leadership" and it certainly was for those it will benefit. However, for the vast majority of Canadians there is not much here.

The media has characterized Budget 2008 as "disappointing", "prudent", and "modest". But this clichéd commentary misses the implications of the proposals. In particular, the pundits simply neglect the extent to which Budget 2008 deepens the erosion of public finances in Canada. The budget is the latest installment of a process for dismantling Canada's rather modest welfare which began in earnest with the Chrétien-Martin Liberals in the mid-1990s.

There are two central themes which form the base of Budget 2008.

The first is the further erosion of the tax base to finance public services. This strategy is referred to in the Budget as "Strengthening Canada's tax advantage". Since Flaherty's Economic Statement of October 2007, the Conservatives have committed to $60 billion in tax cuts through to 2012. Since 2006, the Federal debt has been reduced by $37 billion. The tax cuts in combination with aggressive use of budget surpluses to reduce debt are not simply an accounting tactic. It is the main Conservative economic strategy to preclude a future government from initiating new programs such as child care, pharmacare, or an urban and infrastructure agenda, without initiating new tax increases.

Within this framework of making cuts in revenue sources, there is the further objective of reducing corporate tax levels. The Conservative plan is to drop the rate of corporate income tax to 15.0% by the year 2012 from the current rate of 19.5%. If this goal is achieved, the Conservatives will have reduced corporate taxes by a full third since coming into power in 2006. The result is that Canada will have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7 group of countries. This is even lower than what corporations pay in the United States, and quite contrary to the rhetoric of the business media and the Conservatives of Canada imposing high taxes on capital. These cuts are in addition to the elimination of the corporate surtax effective January 1st of 2008. It is sheer rhetoric from the corporate sector that the Conservatives are not doing enough to aid business. These cuts are occurring at a time when the Conservatives acknowledge that "the financial position of the corporate sector is very healthy. Corporate profits as a share of GDP are near their record high, well above average historical levels."

[Meddle]

1. Being from Canada, I am happy to announce

That not only is this budget going to fail in parliament, but the Liberals are up in the polls as of this moment.

We at the Liberal party are already preparing for a late spring election to take back power from Harper and his secretive government...

[Elspeth]

2. I honestly hope you can nip this now

Otherwise, you've seen what has happened here.

[melody]

3. That's what we thought, too in '92 -- think again

Trust me, they'll take you down faster than Bruce the shark when they want to.

[lovuian]

4. I'm rooting for you and praying

hope they don't steal it