Economists and experts say they’re expecting the federal government to raise taxes in Tuesday’s budget to help offset billions of dollars in new spending already promised in the pre-budget announcements that have been landing almost daily since the end of March.
Those announcements add up to more than $38 billion in commitments over a number of years. Because $17 billion of those commitments involve loan-based programs, about $21 billion could hit the government’s bottom line directly.
