Worst campaign promise this election!

Mr. Harper has issued the Conservative's first campaign promise of this election. To provide families with young children the ability to use income splitting to reduce their tax burden. BUT, you have to wait until the budget is balanced, which is expected to happen in four or five years from now. This is the worst campaign promise this election, which is saying a lot, because the election is only a few days old! Many voters don't trust politicians as it is, do the Conservatives really believe voters should trust the Conservatives now? This is above and beyond the criticism that's emerging on this policy. That it will not apply to all families with young children, but rather families with a single income earner making over $100k (yet the average income earner in Canada is about $46k). That it will encourage one parent to stay at home, even after the kids are old enough to go to school. This is Social Conservatism. The idea that a family is made up of two parents (let's call it for what the Conservatives think that is and that the two parents are a man and a woman), where the woman stays home and the man brings home the bacon, and that bacon has to be substantial! And what happens if one parent does stay home until all their children are out of the house? After all the years this person has been out of the workforce, what skills and experience will they have to rejoin the workforce, if that's what they wish, or need to do? Will we see elderly people manning the majority of positions in fast food outlets, instead of high school students getting their first job experience? If the Conservatives really wanted to help families, then it should be across the board. Eliminate tax on anyone making a wage below the poverty line. Reduce the tax on the lowest income tax brackets (Mr. Martin and the Liberals tried to do this when they were in government, before they were defeated by Mr. Harper's Conservatives, who rolled that back). This helps everyone, regardless of income level, regardless of whether they have children, regardless of whether they are head of a single parent household. It never ceases to amaze me that Mr. Harper, a trained economist, is making public policy that makes little sense from a economic standpoint. The biggest gaffe was reducing the GST. It was a good sound bite for the 2006 election. People certainly hated that tax, but the consequence was to reduce revenue for the government which put the country into a much larger deficit situation now, than Canada would have been had that not been done. A better policy would have been to reduce personal income tax so that Canadian voters could choose to do what they wanted with their money, whether it was to save for their children's education, save for retirement, or spend it on an expensive pair of sneakers. Instead, the Conservatives are rolling out high sounded policies that target specific demographics and even then, it becomes more narrowly defined when you get into the details. It makes me wonder if Mr. Harper would get a failing grade from his economic professors. The Conservative Government gloats that Canada is in the best economic situation in the world, but just imagine where the deficit would be if the Conservatives actually made good economic policy, rather than imposing their narrowly defined Social Conservatism and vote grabbing public policy. Voters need to ask the hard questions of the Conservatives now, because outside of an election campaign, the Conservatives keep tight control over the media regarding their message.