Economy
Taxpayer watchdog slams Trudeau gov’t for increasing debt ceiling: ‘Put down the credit card’
From LifeSiteNews
Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland authorized an additional $73 billion in borrowing this fiscal year.
After Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland gave herself and the government the authority to borrow an additional $73 billion this fiscal year, the head of the nation’s leading taxpayer watchdog group said the federal government needs to “put down the credit card” and return to common-sense spending.
Freeland, as per a February 15 cabinet order made under the Financial Administration Act, allowed the extra borrowing to take place.
The government has set “$517 billion to be the maximum aggregate principal amount of money that may be borrowed” before April 1. Before this cabinet order, however, the maximum amount was $444 billion.
Despite Freeland claiming that the increase in borrowing is “in no way a blank cheque,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Franco Terrazzano said the borrowing needs to end.
“The Trudeau government needs to put down the credit card and pick up some scissors,” Terrazzano told LifeSiteNews.
“The government should be cutting spending and balancing the budget, not racking up more debt for years to come.”
In 2021, Canada’s Parliament raised the federal debt borrowing amount by a whopping 56% under the Borrowing Authority Act. The amount went from $1.168 trillion to $1.831 trillion.
“What it does is set a ceiling for how much the government can spend,” Freeland said at the time.
Terrazzano told LifeSiteNews that the Trudeau government should be cutting spending and balancing the budget, not racking up more debt for years to come.
“More debt means more money wasted on interest charges and less room to cut taxes,” he noted.
Terrazzano observed that in the coming year the Trudeau government will be spending “more money on debt interest charges than it sends to the provinces in health transfers.”
“In a handful of years, every penny collected from the GST (Goods and Service Tax) will go toward paying interest on the debt,” he noted.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, due to excessive COVID money printing, inflation has skyrocketed.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that fast-rising food costs in Canada have led to many people feeling a sense of “hopelessness and desperation” with nowhere to turn for help, according to the Canadian government’s own National Advisory Council on Poverty.
Last year, the Bank of Canada acknowledged that Trudeau’s federal “climate change” programs, which have been deemed “extreme” by some provincial leaders, are indeed helping to fuel inflation.
Terrazzano told LifeSiteNews that Trudeau should “completely scrap his carbon tax,” which is making everything more expensive.
Conservatives blast increased debt
Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MPs have been critical of the raised debt ceiling. “You’re simply saying, ‘Give me a blank cheque and then trust me,’” MP Ed Fast said.
Freeland claimed that the “characterization of the borrowing authority limit as a blank cheque is simply false.”
CPC leader Pierre Poilievre recently asked, “Is there a dollar figure to which she would limit the debt?”
She replied that the government is “mindful that limits exist.”
During a February 13 Senate national finance committee meeting, Budget Officer Yves Giroux noted how Trudeau’s cabinet plans in terms of spending are not clear.
“We don’t know exactly what the government plans on spending or doing in terms of new spending or potential spending,” he said when asked by Senator Elizabeth Marshall if the new borrowing limits are “still realistic.”
Marshall added, “As it stands now, do you think it looks reasonable?”
“It looks sufficient, but the government always wants to give itself some room to maneuver in case there are unforeseen events that require borrowing on short notice,” Giroux replied.
A report from September 5, 2023, by Statistics Canada shows food prices are rising faster than headline inflation at a rate of between 10% and 18% per year.
According to a recent Statistics Canada survey of supermarket prices, Canadians are paying 12% more for carrots, 14% more for hamburger (ground meat), and 27% more for baby formula.
Business
Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill
Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.
In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.
This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.
However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.
Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.
Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.
Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.
Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.
Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.
Authors:
Business
Trudeau’s new tax package gets almost everything wrong
From the Fraser Institute
Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced several short-term initiatives related to tax policy. Most notably, the package includes a two-month GST holiday on certain items and a one-time $250 cheque that will be sent to all Canadians with incomes under $150,000.
Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s package is a grab bag of bad ideas that will not do anything to get Canada out of the long-term growth rut in which our economy is mired. There are too many to list all in one place, but here are four of the biggest problems with Prime Minister Trudeau’s tax plan.
- It reduces the wrong taxes. When it comes to economic growth, not all taxes are created equal. Some cause far more economic harm per dollar of government revenue raised than others. The government’s package creates a holiday on the GST for some items (only for two months) which is a mistake given that the GST is one of the least economically harmful components of the tax mix. Canada’s recent growth record is abysmal, and boosting growth should be a primary goal of any changes to tax policy. A GST cut of any duration fails this test relative to other tax cuts.
- Temporary tax holidays shift consumption in time, they don’t boost growth. The government’s GST reduction is actually a short-term tax holiday on certain items that will last two months. There are decades worth of economic research showing that when governments create short-term tax breaks, they may change the timing of consumption, but they won’t contribute to actual economic growth. Shifting consumption from the future to the present won’t help get Canada out of the economic doldrums. This is particularly true of the Trudeau tax holiday since purchases that Canadians may have made after the two-month holiday period will simply be shifted forward to take advantage of the absence of the GST. As noted above, there are better taxes to cut than the GST, but no matter what taxes we are talking about permanent reductions are vastly superior to temporary tax cuts like short-term holidays.
- One-time tax rebates don’t improve economic incentives. Perhaps the worst element of the Trudeau government’s announcement was a plan to send $250 cheques to all Canadians earning under $150,000. One-time tax rebates are a terrible way to provide tax relief. When you cut income tax rates, you improve incentives for people to work and invest because they get to keep a larger share of their earnings. This helps the economy grow. One-time rebates that you get regardless of the economic choices you make has no similar effect. This means that the rebate with its $4.7 billion price tag won’t help Canada’s poor growth performance.
- It borrows from the future to give to the present. The federal government is currently running a large deficit. This raises the question of who will have to pay the $4.7 billion bill for the one-time payments announced today. The answer is that the government will have to borrow the money and therefore future taxpayers will have to either pay it off or service the extra debt indefinitely. The money the Trudeau government will send out won’t come out of thin air, it’ll have to be borrowed with the burden falling on future taxpayers.
The Trudeau government got one thing conceptually right, which is that there are advantages to reducing the tax burden on Canadians. Unfortunately, the policy package it has put forward to provide tax relief gets everything wrong. It reduces the wrong taxes, shifts taxes temporally rather than cutting them, does nothing to improve economic incentives, and burdens future taxpayers. With the holiday season around the corner, this attempt at a gift to Canadian taxpayers is the economic equivalent of a lump of coal in the stocking.
Authors:
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