Given that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once said budgets balance themselves, it’s perhaps not surprising his major broken election promises to date are in the areas of tax cuts and government spending.

Indeed, after 16 months in office, Canadians have cause to be concerned about where his government is headed, financially.

To be sure, it’s not as if Trudeau has broken all his promises and by some counts (see http://trudeaumetre.polimeter.org), he’s kept more than he’s broken, although these tend to involve spending money or symbolic gestures like having gender-equality in cabinet.

However, when it comes to people’s pocketbooks, there’s cause for concern.

Here are 10 key promises Trudeau has broken since becoming PM on Nov. 4, 2015.

1: Revenue neutral middle-class tax cut

Trudeau said his middle class tax cut would pay for itself. It hasn’t. The tax cut is costing all Canadians $1.2 billion annually from the federal treasury, a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

2: Small business tax cut

Trudeau promised to lower the rate from 11% to 9%. He hasn’t.

3: Modest deficits

Trudeau said annual deficits over his first term in office would total $24.1 billion. Last week’s federal budget pegs them at $93.3 billion, an immodest increase of 287%.

4: Balanced budget

Trudeau said the budget would be balanced, with a $1 billion surplus, in 2019-20. Last week’s budget predicts the deficit in 2019-20 will be $20.4 billion, $18.7 billion deficit in 2020-21 and $15.8 billion in 2021-22. It gives no indication of when the budget will be balanced, if ever.

5: Reduce debt-to-GDP ratio

Trudeau promised this ratio, a key indicator of the government’s economic health, would be reduced from 30% to 27% by the end of his first term in office. Last week’s budget replaces this with a vague statement the ratio will be lower in 2020-21 than 2016-17, without specifics.

6: Revenue neutral carbon pricing

Trudeau said his carbon pricing plan would be revenue neutral for the federal government. This was misleading because his government is not lowering other federal taxes to offset new federal revenues gained from carbon pricing, which is the definition of revenue neutrality. Instead, Trudeau has set a mandatory national carbon price for provincial governments to implement, with no requirement that their carbon pricing schemes must be revenue neutral for them.

7: Reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions

Before the 2015 election, Trudeau and the Liberals said then prime minister Stephen Harper’s proposed emission cuts were inadequate. Post-election, Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said they were the “floor” on which the Liberals would build. Today, Harper’s floor is Trudeau’s ceiling since he hasn’t changed Harper’s targets.

8: Electoral reform

Trudeau said the 2015 election would be the last using “first past the post” balloting and would be replaced with some form of proportional representation. He has abandoned this promise.

9: Open and transparent government

The opposition parties complain Trudeau is proposing to reduce weekly parliamentary sittings from five days to four (eliminating Fridays), appear only one day a week to answer their questions, limit their power to delay legislation and give the government more time to answer their written inquiries.

10: Restore home mail delivery

Trudeau’s government is studying the issue, but his promise appears to have been downsized to not cutting home mail delivery any further, rather than restoring previous cuts.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com