Exaggerating accomplishments

I can remember back in 2000 when then Finance Minister Paul Martin claimed, during his budgetary speech, that his department would deliver on a "$103-billion dollar tax cut". However, after closer review and calculations, it was found that his cumulative tax reduction (1997-2004) was only worth a meager $8.8 billion. Quite a discrepancy.

Well, the liberals are no longer in power and Paul Martin doesn't control the purse strings, although it appears as though this practice of overstating tax cuts still remains.

Update

I see former Bernard Lord press secretary turned Flaherty spokesperson Chisholm Pothier is backing his boss on this one (surprise, surprise):

"This government has in fact reduced taxes for Canadian individuals, families and businesses by $41 billion since coming to power."

"We've done that by reducing consumption taxes, excise taxes, personal taxes and corporate taxes over those three years (2006 to 2008)."

Unfortunately, Chisolm is way off on this one because much of the $41 billion claimed as a tax cut by the Harper government was either spending disguised as a tax cut (e.g. $1.2-billion Working Income Tax Benefit which cuts a cheque of up to $1,000 per family) or them taking credit for the previous government's tax measure (e.g. $500-million in personal income tax reductions made by Paul Martin's Liberals in the 2005 budget).

Also, if they are going to take credit for tax relief enacted by the liberals in 2005, it is only fair to count tax increases since that year wherein they took credit for forgone revenue from a tax hike they claimed never happened (e.g. they claim they cut the personal income tax rate for the lowest income bracket by half-a-percentage point last year when, in retrospect, they increased it by half-a-percentage point from the original full percentage point reduction in 2005 --- which btw was used on tax returns but was not enacted in law).

When all is said and done and everything factored in, the Harper tax cut works out to approximately $8.8 billion less or $32.2 billion dollars. That's not bad as it is still preferable to a $32.2 billion dollar increase in taxes. But it is a far cry from the $41 billion reduction the feds might like taxpayers to believe.

(Hat tip goes out to John Williamson who worked tirelessly crunching the numbers that I so righteously quoted above)