6/16/2011

The Change in Canadian and US net Debt as a percent of GDP


The policies for Canada and the US couldn't have been much more different. Obama followed a massive Keynesian debt and spending binge. Canada didn't. The data is available here. Look at Fiscal balances and public indebtedness, worksheet 55.
UPDATE: If you put Canada's $32.6 billion (US dollars) stimulus in per capita terms, it comes to $979 per person (2008 population in Canada is 33.31 million). If you put the US's $830 billion "Stimulus" in per capita terms, it comes to $2730 per person (2008 US population is 304 million). Half the Canadian stimulus also involved cuts in marginal tax rates. Less than 22 percent of the US Stimulus involved tax cuts (the total Stimulus ended up being $830 billion, not $819 billion). Canada has been gradually cutting its corporate income tax rate from 21 percent in 2007 to 15 percent next year. More importantly, to the extent that Obama's stimulus cut taxes, it contained cuts in average rates through deductions and credits, but increases in marginal tax rates as those benefits were phased out. Economists would argue that it is the marginal tax rate that determines the return from additional work. Canada's cutting marginal tax rates versus Obama's raising marginal tax rates is the most important point.
If you want to use the IMF real purchasing power measures for Canada and the United States, one will see that the US "Stimulus" ran about 5.9 percent of GDP ($830 billion/$14,441.43 billion). By contrast, the Canadian stimulus ran about 2.1 percent of GDP ($32.6 billion/$1,499.11 billion). For whatever it is worth if people want to put this on a per capita real income basis, Canada and the US had very similar real personal income in 2008 ($45,068 for Canada and $47,392.75 for the US).

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home