I'm no economist but...

I made the effort to attend the NB finance ministers pre-budget public consultation in Fredericton last night, and took note of some of the numbers he presented. Now as I look at the numbers, I am confused as to why we are struggling to balance the books. It looks easy to me...but I readily admit I am not an economist, or even a great personal financial planner, so maybe I am mistaken.

Here's what I am talking about....Higgs and others have said that NB has a revenue problem, and from what I can see that is true; but based on the numbers presented, I don't see why this is the case. From the 3rd last slide of my Higgs presentation, we could rescind the personal income tax cuts ($320M) and corporate income tax  cuts ($25M) put in place by the previous government and raise $345M in revenue. If we went a step further and raised the HST by 2% we would see $270M in revenue. If I do my math right, that adds up to $615M in new revenue. There has been calls from many sources, including the NB Business Council, to rescind the cuts; so there is support there. The HST increase would be harder to swallow and would be resisted more, but it is do-able; especially if you put programs in place to protect low income earners.

It was announced yesterday that the provincial deficit is now $411M, and the provincial debt is closing in on $11B. So if you put the three changes above in place, you could pay off the deficit and start making $200M payments on the debt. Of course, this is assuming that all proceeds of the tax increases goes directly to the deficit/debt...but that is also do-able.

The government continues to saw that their is legislation in affect that says HST cannot be raised without a referendum. So hold a referendum already; or rescind that legislation as you have done in the past. Recently, the legislation was changed to allow the government to change the civil services pension plan, so it is not unprecedented.

My guess is that any political price to be paid for raising the HST would be offset by the political gain of balancing the books. And even if you say you can't raise the HST, rescinding the tax cuts would still raise $345M, which would but the deficit to $66M.

I must be missing something...it can't be this easy.  If not, then why the hell is it not getting done?