Politics and economic policy were being played out on Parliament Hill Tuesday. At times, it was hard to know which had the upper hand.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled a surprise ways and means motion in the House during the afternoon and then made his way to the National Press Theatre for an economic statement that was a mini-budget in all but name — $60 billion in tax cuts over the next five years.

It's been known for weeks that Flaherty would be making an economic statement this fall. That he would be filling it full of tax breaks, as the Liberals did two years ago just before they were defeated, was clearly something of a last-minute decision.

Too last minute in fact to allow his statement to be read in Parliament without unanimous consent, which the NDP denied.

The ways and means motion meant there would have to be a vote to authorize the tax changes and that, of course, meant the government could fall.

As with the throne speech two weeks ago, if all three opposition parties vote against the motion on Wednesday afternoon (and, therefore, against the proposed cuts to income taxes and the GST), the Conservative government would fall and there would be an election.

And like the throne speech, the Liberals alone decided to keep their powder dry for another day.

The opposition critique was that the tax breaks either didn't do enough for struggling sectors of the economy or were too generous to big business.

Of the $60 billion, $34 billion goes to cut the GST from six per cent to five; $15 billion is for corporate tax relief; and $10 billion is for personal tax cuts, the bulk of which benefit those in the $38,000 to $75,000 brackets.

The one percentage point cut to the GST is "ill-conceived policy," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said. "But we will choose our time when we choose to put this government down. It will not be tomorrow."

So the election guessing game — when will the opposition parties defeat a government they say is on the wrong track? — continues.

But now a new question can be added: Why did the Harper government decide it had to unveil all these tax breaks now, perhaps only a few months before it is to bring in a real budget in the spring?

What does it do then for an encore?