While they're at, it Liberals won't do a whole lot of other things, or at least not soon. They won't do much more for health care, cities, the military or foreign assistance than has already been trumpeted from some rooftops.

Liberals are gambling that Harper's considerable Reform baggage will limit his gains in the urban Ontario and that Layton's attack on corporate elites will only alienate sophisticated voters.

This budget only reinforces the absence of direction, the gradual abdication of an ambitious agenda. At that agenda's core was the hope that a Liberal government that lost its energy before the 1997 election had recovered enough to make good on Martin's commitments to strengthen the social infrastructure, create a 21st-century economy and restore Canada's proud place in the world.