Wanderung in Verteidigungsausgaben könnte in anderen Bereichen Schnitte bedeuten, warnt Mark Carney
https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/hike-in-defence-spending-could-mean-cuts-in-other-areas-mark-carney-warns/article_fdd25361-1e34-4064-ac35-9f1da7b1ee58.html
21 Kommentare
Obviously. We are entering a period in which government is going to *have* to focus on doing a few things properly.
Infrastructure, defense, education, healthcare. A lot of nice-to-haves outside these core areas are going to need to rationalize their value in the coming years or get the axe
Hits combo meth crack pipe: legalizing drugs, and kicking those currently incarcerated for drug crimes (any drug crime) out of prison will save a decent chunk of cash
I get it, but I don’t love it. I’m happy to pay more taxes but people hear ‚tax increase‘ and go crazy bananas.
I look forward to sacrificing our already declining standard of living, in service of funneling billions into the American military-industrial complex to appease Trump. Great stuff all around, really sticking up for working Canadians.
This is why that 5% recommendation from NATO was an idiotic idea. Can’t wait to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on enriching US weapons manufacturers while our living standards continue to collapse due to crumbling infrastructure and criminally underfunded social services.
Maybe some of that near 50 billion to indigenous people. I don’t understand how people so set on self governing need such an exorbitant amount of support.
Program Review will likely happen, and look for some niche government agencies being amalgamated or dropped entirely.
Major cuts are inevitable if he’s serious about the 5% target. Yesterday he said 5% could be as much as $150 billion a year. The federal government currently only collects about $400 billion a year in total federal taxes (personal, corporate, GST combined). So the 5% target is going to eat up about 37% of all collected federal taxes. Something’s got to give.
Yeah, I know there’s some sort of rare earth minerals deal that’s supposed to offset part of it, but there’s no way it makes enough of a dent to prevent major cuts. Especially because despite having huge rare earth mineral reserves, Canada currently has zero commercial production (literally zero… [source](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/rare-earth-elements-facts)). Hard to believe we can ramp up fast enough for whatever deal there is to be valued at tens of billions a year.
That’s called fiscal discipline.
Maybe remove funding for symbolic stuff – changing street names, erecting statues that no one care about, funding causes that have no real impact etc.
Cut the gun „Buyback“ and we’ll save a couple billion right off the top
If he follows through on his plan to invest in manufacturing this could be good. Of it’s simply procurement from other countries then it’s a cash steal and infringing on our sovereignty.
And I’m a little conflicted about the world ramping up arms manufacturing. Wherever there is excess manufacturing politicians “make use of” all the weapons by starting wars.
Infrastructure projects that have benefits beyond military should be priority. Particularly supply, logistics and manufacturing chains. If we can build screws they can be used everywhere. If we can build simple chips they can be used everywhere.
Or – hear me out – raise taxes. It’s appalling how allergic Canadians are to paying more taxes while demanding more spending.
Just raise the fucking taxes on those that benefit the most from the stability i.e. the wealthy.
We have the prosperity to fund all these systems AND MORE but we let people get away with robbery.
Tax the gigantic nest eggs people have built up over +50 years of record low tax rates.
Add BACK the tax brackets that were cut out in the 60s and 70s to further encourage investment in companies and workers, not just CEO compensation.
It was high time we brought back the $400k, $1M, $2M, $4M brackets and reinvest that prosperity into the society that makes those income levels possible.
I think realistically, Canada nor any of the other NATO countries (besides maybe the ones bordering Russia) will commit to 5% as a long term target. We probably will see spending above 2% of GDP (which is great), but I think realistically it will be less than 4% (probably somewhere between 2.5-3.5%) 3.5% is probably the most that the government could increase defense spending without cuts in another area and I think around or slightly above that would be the most the electorate would be willing to accept as well etc.
Mainly the 5% target seems to be to placate Trump, but post-Trump, while I think NATO as a whole see’s practical reasons to boost long term spending, the target will probably be lowered to something more feasible.
Has he considered mandating that every person coming in to Canada bring their own tank, rifle, or at least a trébuche? Solves population crisis as well as weapons spending crisis. /s
What the fuck? He sends billions to Ukraine, is going to spend billions and billions and billions on our military but we have to face „cuts“? Cuts to what?? Shit is already broken
The top federal income tax bracket is $253,414. The top provincial (BC example) tax bracket is $259,829. Why don’t we have $300k, $400k, $500k tax bracket?
Same questions with corporations. The federal business tax is 12% flat.
Would love to see them cut OAS. It’s $80B a year and the clawbacks start at absurdly high levels.
Especially now that so many seniors are sitting on a ton of home equity.
Trim the benefit significantly on the top end and provide more support to low earners. Or just scrap it and beef up GIS.
I’m largely disappointed in Carney’s foreign policy so far. I would have hoped he would have charted a more independent path that’s less dependent on a US led global order and 20th century agreements and focused more on Canada and the modern age. The reality is both Europe and the US have very different defence needs than us. The US as the global hegemon constantly seeking to project power, and the Europeans as the people who share a continent with a large aggressive military power, Russia.
Good thing that we already have so much funding for everything else and that our standard of living hasn’t been steadily decreasing since the ’70s due to increasing privatization and cuts already right?
Maybe, just maybe we’ll need to reduce our largest federal expense which is the unaudited, billions and billions of dollars flying into Indigenous programs and settlements