B.C. Budget 2009

You can read the budget here.

I don't really have a lot to say about it. It's pretty much status quo and under the circumstances it seems reasonable. I'd be very surprised if the deficits don't turn out a lot larger than forecast, but that is more a function of the incorrect economic models that underpin the economic forecasts (and is the mirror of how the surplus always comes in larger than expected during boom years).

As always, I'd like to see greater priority for income redistribution / measures to reduce poverty, reduction of debt levels, better planning for the future including expanded renewable energy generation, and preparation for a network of electricity rather than hydrogen powered gas stations, and more for transit, less for roads and so on. But given that we're talking about a right wing government here, we should just be happy they didn't decide to match Harper and company's billions for granite countertops program.

B.C. Budget 2008

The intro page is here.

The table of contents for the budget details is here.

My opinion? This is a pretty good budget. The main element is a carbon tax to be phased in over the next few years (starting at $10/tonne of CO2 and rising to $30/tonne) and offset by reductions in the bottom two income tax brackets and lower business taxes. The neutrality (i.e. not increasing the total tax level) of the tax is protected by a legislative requirement that each budget contain a three year plan for making sure that increases to the carbon tax are offset by reductions in other taxes. There will also be a carbon tax rebate (up to $100/year) for low income individuals so that the poor don't suffer too much from the new tax.

In addition to the new tax there is a wide scattering of environmental measures, the most important of which might be provincial sales tax exemptions for energy efficient / energy saving products and appliances.

Aside from that it is mainly more of the same, with most new funding going to health spending, as you might expect.

On a personal note, I appreciate that the decision to scrap the auto rental tax ($1.50/day) for rentals of 8 hours or less, rather than retroactively applying it to carsharing organizations. Is there any good reason (other than squeezing tourists, I suppose) to have a special tax on auto rentals anyway?

There's even good news for right-wing folks - once B.C. gets hit by the recession and housing downturn which is inevitably coming no matter what we do, they can blame it all on the carbon tax.

My two main concerns (somewhat inherently contradictory although not really, I think taxes should be higher in the upper brackets) are that a) the government should be reducing our debt, not increasing it (the budget forecasts total government debt rising from $37B to $42B over the next 3 years), while economic times are still pretty good, but the debt load has declined under the Liberals so far and they have followed the revenue-lowballing example set by Paul Martin and generally have ended up with larger revenues than forecast, so this is not a crisis situation, just a wish for a different emphasis...

...and b) that there isn't much here to change the fact that B.C. ranks near the bottom of the country in terms of how it treats the poor and on social indicators in general.

Overall though, this is a job well done, and the implementation of a revenue neutral carbon tax sets a valuable precedent which other jurisdictions will hopefully follow.