Brief Budget Thoughts

My comments on this are going to be pretty quick, if only because there's not a whole of earth-shattering news in the budget to respond to:

• Establishing Canada's western frontier at the Rocky Mountains was a bit of a boo-boo. My trip home in May is not an international flight!
• Dion's immediate reaction was sandbox politics. He cited Duceppe's support as one of his main reasons for opposing it. I don't like Duceppe either, but if he likes certain hockey teams or bands I'm not going to stop liking them simply because he's a fan. Grow up!
• Very little mention of defence spending. I'm sure it's in the document, but it wasn't given much tout during the speech.
• I like the announcement of increasing international aid. We're still a long way from our 4 decades-old pledge to hit 0.7% though.
• Thumbs up to Joe Comuzzi for taking a principled stand. Equal thumbs up to Stephane Dion for enforcing party solidarity. I like free votes on some issues, but the budget isn't one of them.
• Credits are good, levies against gas guzzlers are good. Some people need to learn how credits work, though.
• A couple of people may be wondering why there wasn't the second cut to the GST. Easy: Harper said it would be introduced by the end of his first term, and as I've been saying all along, he has no intention of forcing an election this spring or any time in the next six-to-twelve months.