What a funny little shopping basket of sundries the federal budget is. A bit of this, a bit of that, with no overarching plan, which the cleverest bureaucrats in Canada should surely have been crafting since the banks first started shifting on their massive marble feet, no?

Call me old-fashioned, but in times like these I like to feel someone's firmly in charge of the money. Someone calm, astute, someone whose teacup isn't rattling in the saucer.

It is sweet of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to support the thing. I'd call it downright unnatural but I'm trying to remain polite about this relentlessly accommodating Opposition leader.

The French aren't polite; they're doing the rational thing and taking to the streets against Nicolas Sarkozy. How I love the French. It's soothing to live in a country that stays indoors no matter what, but I miss the style and dash of the Europeans.

Tax thingy

This federal budget has no élan. It's a lumpy mess. It reads like one of my shopping lists, a document I always worry will be found on me if I'm in a car accident.

My economic plans start out organized and end up sounding frantic and mad. What would police make of this?

"Two sets fling rods pls pillow forms for lvg rm couch-MEASURE WITH ELBOW! Cdn Tire - Serious belt sander. Matching shovels, plstc. Ivory satin Phillip Lim fan dress at Holts? Does exist? Men's muffler, NOT WOOL. Shoppers-lg. cotton balls, concealer-shade lighter, Redoxon, Vitabath, Obama GQ. Gray suede slouch boots, TB Sheets, pomegranates, bobbins, yogurt maker, that coat at Club Monaco, vodka, sidewalk salt, carpets TAX Thingy!"

My list is suggestive. The crucial is intermixed with the hopeful, with an element of "if I happen to be passing the store at the time."

As for the news that Barack Obama's stimulus plan includes a "Buy American" footnote that could devastate our exports, I'd like to retaliate with a "Buy Canadian" element in my list.

Of course, American companies own most of our retailers. Why? Because we let them. And even Canadian retailers can't sell Canadian because Canada hardly makes anything anymore.

This leaves me, one lonely shopper checking for "Made in Canada" labels at Canadian Tire and Holts. That isn't a winning national strategy. I leave federal governments to come up with those.

Unlikely to be stimulated

And what does Ottawa devise? A deficit budget that splashes cash about rather than pouring it where it is most needed.

What is $170 million going to do for the forest industry, which is literally being eaten by bugs? Those bugs are here thanks to climate change, about which the budget says almost nothing. I am astounded by this.

At the same time, there is $4.4 billion in tax cuts for business, which is right out of the George W. Bush playbook. So are the tiny tax cuts for the middle class that hardly get noticed by frightened families and are unlikely to be spent in any "stimulating" way.

Who besides the Conservatives in this country are still asking for more tax cuts? The Bush years are over, if only Ottawa had noticed.

In contrast, the Obama economic stimulus is carefully targeted, at health care, schools and public works. His economists put thought into it; they were as calm as the president himself.

Despite a concession on the deficit-expanding tax breaks that Republicans favour, it is a reasonable plan for American interests.

Panic button

Harper's budget looks like a panic plan, a way to buy political time and tolerance from disparate groups of people by doing things the government doesn't actually believe in.

The main function of government, I would have thought, is to plan for the future, especially a future that looks as bleak as this. So where's the big spending for urban transit and the tax breaks for green projects?

Also, we hear about layoffs in the tens of thousands. So why didn't the budget change the EI rules that currently allow only 54 per cent of laid-off workers to qualify? EI money gets spent — it stimulates the economy immediately — because families need to eat and stay warm.

Now we come to the weirdest aspect of the budget, the tax credit for home renovations. Not solar panels or space-age toilets, not green roofs or even mandating white roofs to reflect the sun's rays back into the sky.

No, the prime minister is going to help us pay for new carpeting, new panelling for the rec room, maybe winterizing the porch.

Improve my mood

Why does Ottawa want to pay to make my house prettier? If I did something energy-efficient, it would help the next generation stay warm and, theoretically, lower everyone's energy bills. But buying a new layer of berber for the basement will do nothing more than improve my mood.

If I have $10,000 to spend on carpeting, I don't have basic economic problems. So I won't care much about the maximum $1,350 tax break that I will finally get sometime in 2010.

Besides, unless I buy strictly Canadian — and I'm not sure Canada raises the sheep for the wool carpet I want — my 10 grand will merely go towards preserving a cashier's part-time wages at Home Depot.

Wouldn't it be wiser to make the cashier more efficient and better trained. Or at least more readily eligible for EI when Home Depot's Georgia head office decides to shut stores in Canada?

What a cheesy, small-time way to keep Canada just mucking along. During the biggest economic crisis the world has faced in a century, we have a prime minister as carpet salesman and a nail-biting Opposition leader in the back office with a cheap calculator.

I'm going to be so embarrassed when President Obama visits. Can we set our ambitions any lower, Canada?