Ontario's 2010 Budget - Pre-Throne Speech

Are we expecting too much from our Governments lately? The Feds with a 50+ billion dollar deficit, the Ontario Government with a 20+ billion dollar deficit, and all we here is "what's in it for me?". Hopefully the majority of folks can say that the "keeping the ship on course" message is really what is in it for all of us. Ensuring that policies that allow private enterprises to grow, create jobs and prosperity continue. Making sure the burdens business has on its shoulders, keeping it from doing what it does best, "doing business", are deferred, reduced or even better eliminated, are good for all of us. We heard in the Federal Budget that these are foremost in the agenda going forward, along with the continued support in R&D and assisting emerging technologies to advance. Not surprisingly, the McGuinty Governments move to harmonizing sales tax is wildly unpopular. I can certainly understand the consumers fret over this, but not businesses. Business is for the most part the big winner. Now, business will no longer pay any sales tax at all. Everything becomes an input tax credit and this is sure to eventually reduce costs, well, at least in most areas. My personal belief is that the new HST isn't such a bad idea, in fact it is a 21st century tax policy and competing globally like we do, it only makes sense to have the same taxation policies as our customers (other countries) do. Value Added Tax policies are pretty much the norm out there folks, this is what will make us most competitive on the world stage. That being said, it appears, at least on the surface, the focus of governments these days is in fact to encourage jobs, growth and new opportunities for everyone, am I missing something, because I kind of like that agenda. We can't afford to enhance expenditures, if those expenditures do nothing to promote private investment in jobs, sorry to those who disagree, but if cuts have to come, they shouldn't at the expense of business. It is obviously a huge hurdle for people who are out of work, but investing in the creation of new opportunities is what should and must happen. I anticipate the same type of Budget in Ontario as we saw from the Federal Government, Mr. Duncan is pretty much a shoot from the hip kind of guy, he is opinionated, but an extremely capable Minister of Finance. I don't always agree with him or Mr. Flaherty, but as long as they keep giving opportunties for business to prosper, create jobs and advance our economy, I figure it could always be worse. I'm an optimist, and I hope its going to be the right budget, for right now.