It has been 653 days since the last federal budget - never let it be said that the federal government hurries to explain how it collects and spends almost 180 billion dollars every year -and now we know, sort of, what Ottawa intends to do with our money. Here's the taxpayer's realpolitik analysis: A division into good, bad, mischievous, and pork.

Good: Some of the spending on security. In addition, the government will not stall business tax relief announced in previous years, though the personal tax relief is finished. The continued business tax cuts are laudable.

Mischievous: While it makes sense to have airport travelers pay for airport security through a user fee rather than take it from general revenues, the new user fee is a tax increase - of almost half a billion dollars per year.

Bad: Personal income taxes as a percentage of the economy are still higher than when the Liberals took office in 1993. Back to the drawing board on this Mr. Martin.

Good but mischievous: While Paul Martin did not cut your personal taxes any more in this budget, income tax thresholds will rise next year: The basic personal exemption will rise to $7,634 in 2002 from $7,412 this year. The $30,754 to $61,509 tax bracket (taxed at 22%) will be set at $31,67 to $63,354; the $61,509 to $100,000 tax bracket (taxed at 26%) will be set at 63,354 to $103,000. Anything over $100,000 this year (taxes at 29%) will see that rate kick in at $103,000 next year.

Mischievous: If Paul Martin and Company claim that such hikes in the tax bracket thresholds are actually tax cuts (which they do), take such talk with a large dose of salt and call your MP in the morning (to scoff). The brackets are now indexed to inflation, so even though more income looks like it is exempt from taxation, the brackets are only keeping up with inflation. Such moves, while welcome, do not constitute a new tax cut.

Speaking of salt: That "$100 billion tax cuts" figure the federal Finance Minister likes to throw around is misleading, false, bogus, pumped-up, laughable, untrue, and - to use the category employed for this analysis - mischievous. After Canada Pension Plan tax hikes and extra bracket creep taxes that did not occur, the real tax cuts between last year and 2004 will equal $47 billion, not $100 billion. The federal Finance Minister would do well to stop publishing numbers that are - to be blunt - plainly incorrect. He is better than such games.

Pork: The King of Pork, Industry Minister Brian Tobin, received $115 million for his broadband initiative. There is nothing so dangerous as a glad-handing, glib cabinet minister from a have-not province in search of the boss' job. Combine Brian Tobin with futuristic-sounding technology justifications, and taxpayers will pay for stuff the private sector could well deliver on its own dime and in its own time. If Brian Tobin ever grasps the federal Finance portfolio, or the Prime Minister's chair, his tenure would make Glen Clark's time in British Columbia look the reign of Alan Greenspan in comparison.

Bad: Spending is about to go up, again. It will be up 20% over three years to $140 billion in 2004, from $119.3 billion this year, and up from $112 billion in 1999. Rather than re-prioritize from the existing spending envelope - say, the $2 billion in corporate welfare dished out every year, or some of the $16 billion in discretionary grants the federal Auditor General identified last week - the federal government decided to spend as close to the line as possible. The federal Finance minister says he won't allow Canada to tread back into deficit territory. Given that the federal government has consistently overspent its projected estimates over the last several years, taxpayers should keep the salt handy.