Federal Budget 2016: $29B Deficit

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Mark me down as a CBC supporter.

Also a big CBC supporter here.
Radio 1 and 2 and a big watcher of CBC TV: Quality and diverse programming.

[rubecube]

Considering Canada is currently running about a $130B worth of infrastructure deficit, I kind of think it's something we should be addressing.

[_Q_]

Run a huge deficit to get people off their butts and back into the work force while upgrading some much needed infrastructure. Plan to pay it back in 5 years when things get better. I honestly don't see what is not to like about this.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I like CBC too, you guys, but I'm not sure I like it enough to want $675 million sent there instead of, say, building fifteen of the best high schools in the country (or a dozen other things one could name).

[burn_this_city]

Most people's issue with the CBC isn't the cost or programming, its the perception that its filled with partisan hacks with a Laurentian bend.

Overall I'll give the Liberals a pass on the budget. It's not as dramatic as the number seems and the percentage of GDP factor is key. Considering the massive drop in revenue, Jr. would have been forced to cut back on all his campaign promises. I hope we get good value for the money spent, particularly on FN issues. Maybe that will buy some social license for pipelines and other infrastructure, but I doubt it.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Regorium

If you read my post, which was actually helpful, you would know that he was actually a year early on this. The GM shares were for THIS year, not last year, which also had a surplus.

I read and I get the difference in timing. But it was still for the purpose of fulfilling the election promise. And again these are not my opinions, this was brought up by media. Were they all wrong?

And it's fine if he balanced the budget by making policy etc, but it's clear that these shares were used to boost revenues. Most people don't know what happened, but for me selling assets to cover budget holes is not exactly balancing a budget.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Please explain what has changed, since the election, to cause the additional 20B in debt?
Oil was in the crapper then also, pretty sure oil prices are actually better today.

I was referring to DURING the election, when people have concrete platforms they need to run on, and when they made the promises you are saying they are breaking now. From April-July 2015, oil was seeing a rise back to around $60/bbl after the big crash in late 2014. Oil began to fall steadily through the fall and by the end of the election was pushing below $40/bbl. By December we were into $30/bbl and some days showing under that.

My point is that, during this time, their budgets SHOULD have changed. You are chastising the Liberals for coming out with an initial projection and then changing it. Well, they should be changing it when our most valuable resource and largest GDP indicator is nose diving before our eyes.

It would be scarier to me if any government that was in power, whether Cons Libs or NDP, didn't change their budgets from what they had when the price was even mediocre.

It's like the opposite of the NDP argument being used by the same people. They had plans, which may have been OK with high oil prices, but then they started to tank, and even the most ardent NDP supporters had to admit that the NDPs plans just weren't feasible in that environment. But the NDP stayed the course with their plans (or delayed action) and were rightfully lambasted for not adapting to what was happening. So is the "promise breaking" really what's bothering you, or is it the method?

Now we have the Liberals trying to adapt to what has happened, and the same people are hating on that. You can argue the method, the theory, you can hate the ideologies behind where the money is going all you want, that's fine. But you can't crap on them for adapting their strategy when it HAS to be adapted. The way it is adapted, that is totally fair game.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Run a huge deficit to get people off their butts and back into the work force while upgrading some much needed infrastructure. Plan to pay it back in 5 years when things get better. I honestly don't see what is not to like about this.

Has Canada ever significantly paid down it's debt, has any modern western country?

[Red]

So outside the large deficit and the cons vs liberals records, anything of note to talk about?

How about the child benefit changes? They seem like a major overhaul with low earners getting a lot more and higher earners losing it altogether.

Found a calculator for the benefits. Not sure how accurate.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/2016/tool-outil/ccb-ace-en.html

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by transplant99

CBC radio is fine and has a niche that they can easily fill without government funding.

CBC TV needs to disappear. yeah they have canadian shows etc, but here's the rub...no one watches them and they are not good enough to exist on their own.

The government simply shouldn't be in competition with private business in such a direct manner. The CBC can try and go the way of PBS and survive on public donations and all the power to them in that case. In no way, shape or form should they be artificially propped up by taxpayer money though.

You know this would not happen. PBS is American so it doesn't have a huge neighbour with 100 times the content to swallow it up.

CBC needs to be protected. If it went private or publicly funded, it just takes one money-hungry CEO to destroy it. As it stands now, CBC doesn't have to chase dollars and can make quality Canadian programming.

We'd be American pretty fast cause that's where the money is.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Matata

Has Canada ever significantly paid down it's debt, has any modern western country?

Well that is the dirty little secret about this. No one is actually talking about paying it back, and it won't actually happen. The US for example isn't actually going to pay about $19 Trillion in debt back. Canada isn't paying however many hundreds of billions back. We'll reduce it when the servicing costs get too high and eat into the ability to borrow, and maybe reduce it some when that kind of thing happens, but that's it. Imagine the outcry if one government actually cut enough to pay say $500 billion over 5 years? We can't even just keep it level for five years straight, so reduction is a pure pipe dream!

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

You know this would not happen. PBS is American so it doesn't have a huge neighbour with 100 times the content to swallow it up.

CBC needs to be protected. If it went private or publicly funded, it just takes one money-hungry CEO to destroy it. As it stands now, CBC doesn't have to chase dollars and can make quality Canadian programming.

We'd be American pretty fast cause that's where the money is.

The CRTC says the CBC and others cannot chase dollars, programming content is dictated by law, not funds.

I'm fine with the CBC staying, just not at the current obscene cost to tax payers with relation to return. Privatize and learn to stay afloat in a competitive market like everyone else.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Red

So outside the large deficit and the cons vs liberals records, anything of note to talk about?

How about the child benefit changes? They seem like a major overhaul with low earners getting a lot more and higher earners losing it altogether.

Found a calculator for the benefits. Not sure how accurate.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/2016/tool-outil/ccb-ace-en.html

Not really much to talk about.

I mean, the line items in the budget are fine - It's basically giving away free money, while not taking any money from anyone. I don't think anyone really has an issue with that.

If I had an unlimited budget, I bet I could write a really good budget as well. Billions for everyone, no tax increases for anyone!

And yes, the media can be wrong. I understand that you're using the media to try to gain some sort of consensus. It's really up to you how you want to interpret it.

The facts are this:
- Harper campaigned on getting to surplus in 2015-2016.
- The GM shares were sold in the 2015-2016 year.
- Harper ALSO got a surplus in 2014-2015.

Did he just sell them to hit his election promise, or was it just coincidence, when you consider that his budget was already in surplus even without the GM shares? As we know in hindsight, oil did tank over the rest of 2015, so he'd be in deficit without the GM sale. At the time, it was quite reasonable to say that he was already in surplus and didn't need to do anything for the 2015-2016 year until oil collapsed.

Regardless, I also think you're not thinking about assets properly. Assets can be liquidated. The price of the GM shares in April 2015 is still higher than at any point since that time. You could even argue that the government made a wise investment decision to get out when the price was highest.

It really depends how you want to frame the idea. I know you hate Harper and he kicked your dog, but there are very valid reasons for doing things.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I was referring to DURING the election, when people have concrete platforms they need to run on, and when they made the promises you are saying they are breaking now. From April-July 2015, oil was seeing a rise back to around $60/bbl after the big crash in late 2014. Oil began to fall steadily through the fall and by the end of the election was pushing below $40/bbl. By December we were into $30/bbl and some days showing under that.

My point is that, during this time, their budgets SHOULD have changed. You are chastising the Liberals for coming out with an initial projection and then changing it. Well, they should be changing it when our most valuable resource and largest GDP indicator is nose diving before our eyes.

It would be scarier to me if any government that was in power, whether Cons Libs or NDP, didn't change their budgets from what they had when the price was even mediocre.

It's like the opposite of the NDP argument being used by the same people. They had plans, which may have been OK with high oil prices, but then they started to tank, and even the most ardent NDP supporters had to admit that the NDPs plans just weren't feasible in that environment. But the NDP stayed the course with their plans (or delayed action) and were rightfully lambasted for not adapting to what was happening. So is the "promise breaking" really what's bothering you, or is it the method?

Now we have the Liberals trying to adapt to what has happened, and the same people are hating on that. You can argue the method, the theory, you can hate the ideologies behind where the money is going all you want, that's fine. But you can't crap on them for adapting their strategy when it HAS to be adapted. The way it is adapted, that is totally fair game.

Yeah but the budget we got doesn't reflect what you're talking about. Revenue is down a fraction of the deficit. But the majority of the deficit, 17.5 billion, is spending, much more spending than we were promised. Also I'm not sure oil revenue projections four years out changed that much during the six months of campaigning.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Yeah but the budget we got doesn't reflect what you're talking about. Revenue is down a fraction of the deficit. But the majority of the deficit, 17.5 billion, is spending, much more spending than we were promised. Also I'm not sure oil revenue projections four years out changed that much during the six months of campaigning.

Yeah I don't disagree. I haven't honestly been able to take a good look at the spending break down, from what is being reported in this thread, I'm not necessarily against it, but agree the change is obviously quite drastic.

Personally, I think deficit spending is the way to go at this point. I have to look a bit deeper into where all the spending is going, but if the indication from what people are crying about around my office this morning is that most benefits are being taken away from people who can afford the benefits without government subsidization. To me that's fine. And it's also kind of funny to me, because the people complaining about it (I don't mean in here as I haven't read everyone's responses), tend to be the people that hate government subsidies for unnecessary things. Now are shocked and appalled to find out that the breaks they were getting were the unnecessary things.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Run a huge deficit to get people off their butts and back into the work force while upgrading some much needed infrastructure. Plan to pay it back in 5 years when things get better. I honestly don't see what is not to like about this.

First of all, there is very little here in actual infrastructure spending (bridges and roads and stuff) unless you are an Aboriginal citizen. However, let's focus on the bold...

They are not planning on paying it back in 5 years. They are not planning on paying it back at all.

They are (modestly) forecasting deficits for the entire 5 years. A deficit means more spending than revenues, therefore the debt gets larger.

They are hoping that their forecasts do turn out to be modest and revenues will grow more than forecast so that maybe there won't be a deficit in the last year.

Maybe, if they're lucky.

At no point is there an intention to actually have a surplus and reduce the deficit.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well that is the dirty little secret about this. No one is actually talking about paying it back, and it won't actually happen. The US for example isn't actually going to pay about $19 Trillion in debt back. Canada isn't paying however many hundreds of billions back. We'll reduce it when the servicing costs get too high and eat into the ability to borrow, and maybe reduce it some when that kind of thing happens, but that's it. Imagine the outcry if one government actually cut enough to pay say $500 billion over 5 years? We can't even just keep it level for five years straight, so reduction is a pure pipe dream!

For a while, Canada was running surpluses and actually reducing the debt burden. In the 90s, the US was also running surpluses. It is possible.

And if it were to continue for a period of time (yeah I know, lol right?), real debt reduction could occur.

But with Mr Trudeau in power, we can put those discussions away for a while. He, like his daddy, believes deficits are a good thing.

[Locke]

I'm seeing a lot of ideology and a lot of deliberate obliviousness to reality.

[Derek Sutton]

Is there truth that the EI reforms are not universal? It sounds like there are exceptions based on geography, I've read (only on Twitter) that Edmonton and Southern Sask are not included in the EI changes. I know JT campaigned on EI reforms but at the time this was mainly focused on the Maritime provinces.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Locke

I'm seeing a lot of ideology and a lot of deliberate obliviousness to reality.

That's my take on this thread too.