Unsurprising that they would report on that.
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Canadian General Election (OT) - #elxn42: October 19, 2015
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
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Unsurprising that they would report on that.
I never said that. Harper was a disaster, but that doesn't mean I'm on the rainbow and unicorns bandwagon either. I wanted real change, and for me that doesn't mean Liberals. I'm certainly optimistic and hopeful that things will improve, but based on the last decade that isn't expecting much.
There are plenty of Canadians who were not pleased with previous Liberal governments. I certainly hope they do better this time. In any case, you should always be skeptical about every government and every politician. As far as I'm concerned, checks and balances is how democracy works. Loving politicians is what Americans do.
One of the best ironies of Canadian politics is people simultaneously cooing positively about infrastructure investment off deficit spending in Trudeau's platform while simultaneously extolling the virtues of Chretien and Martin who were big boosters of austerity in their own time and aggressively sought to balance budgets regardless of the state of the economy by making massive cuts to basic services.
People extol the virtues of Paul Martin?
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Chretien/Martin balanced budgets were during boom times, not recession. That's the correct time to balance budgets.
I'm optimistic about the new Liberal government, but still predicting that we're not going to see any near future changes to the public transit situation in Vancouver, even with all this new infrastructure funding. There still remains an obstructionist, anti-transit provincial government that is making life hard for local governments.
The Liberals were fairly disingenuous with their transit promises in BC. I never saw any local media call them on it.
The Liberals were fairly disingenuous with their transit promises in BC. I never saw any local media call them on it.
As Finance Minister, yes.
gutter_trash
Banned
locally, Quebec Provincial Ministers have not read the party platforms of the 3 Federal parties and are completely unable to answer questions from journalists about how the Legalization of Marijuana Federally will impact the Provincial side.
LOl what a bunch of morons here locally. Unable what to make of Legal Weed
Note that all Provincial Parties have low favoriblity ratings here.
Provinces can be dumb often at times.
LOl what a bunch of morons here locally. Unable what to make of Legal Weed
Note that all Provincial Parties have low favoriblity ratings here.
Provinces can be dumb often at times.
There were definitely periods of significant economic slowdown during the Chretien/Martin tenure. It was not all boom times. Not to mention they came into power during a recession and afaik there was no lag between then and when they started down the austerity path.
Also dismantling the social safety net, as Chretien/Martin were part of doing during the 90s, means that when you get out of the 'boom times' things get really shitty really fast.
I thought one of the principles of Keynes economics was that the appropriate time for austerity is when the economy is doing well. That doesn't seem out of line
Harper partly caused a problem and then tried to capitalize off it with Islamaphobia. That's just pure evil right there.
Austerity is a whole other level above basic Keynesian economics. Austerity is the idea that you should reduce government expenditures, services, and taxes in general. The Liberals are largely responsible for lending credibility to austerity in this country.
Keynesianism doesn't say you should reduce basic services, it says you should engage in larger works projects and run deficits during bad times. That doesn't mean cutting the throat of your health care system.
Let's just wait and see how the funding is divided between western and eastern Canada.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Their first 3 budgets had deficits above the final early 90s PC budget:
1997 was very boom-time. Certainly they stated reviewing what to cut not long after coming to office and eventually made some deep cuts but it's nowhere near the same as "let's cut out legs off while we're down" recession-austerity that's been proposed/practiced in western countries since then.
They also had to deal with a very real threat at the time that nobody would be willing to buy Canadian bonds, rather than the imaginary threat today.
Well the core problem is that Vancouver's mayors need to figure out how to get around the fact that they have an obstructionist, anti-new spending, conservative provincial government.
I predict that Alberta, which is now progressive at all three levels of government, will spend heaps of cash for its transit projects.
With a Liberal provincial government it's pretty safe to say that Toronto's projects will be proceeding, especially given the huge effort Wynne put into getting Trudeau elected.
Edit: Basically the only leverage Gregor has is to state that the Province needs to play ball, or everyone will get the cash and none will be left for Vancouver/Surrey. The problem is that the Province still might not care.
Paul Martin said:
https://books.google.com/books?id=GFGmMNGC_RcC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179#v=onepage&q&f=false
Yes, he does talk about the fact that even in spite of that deficits will happen when *deep* recessions happen. That's a reactive policy, not the proactive management Keynesian economics proposes. And we're not in a deep recession right now though by any stretch. GDP growth has stalled, but not stopped, which again did also happen during his FM/PM tenure. So even by that standard Martin from the 90s would probably still be advocating controlling spending. He may be saying different now with a campaign just completed, I don't know, but it's not what he'd have said at the time.
I'm sorry, but it's absolutely revisionist to paint Martin as a Keynesian. His economic policy was very much born out of the 80s Austerity movement.
Because the early 90s recession hit its peak right as they were coming into office. Notice how every year after that they lowered it. Over their term they lowered spending as % of GDP by something like 10 points. Even as GDP grew quite a bit overall in that time.
Impeccable
Member
I absolutely hate how some of the closer friends I have in real life suddenly won't stop posting things about the government and the future because of the outcome of this election.
It's the first time I've felt the need to speak out against one of our friends... normally I just ignore it and move on but I'm starting to draw a line when people are linking infographs and pictures from sources that are promoting things like homophobia. It's fucking 2015, have a problem with the government but do it sensibly. Ugh.
Oh well, my Canada is being restored. This is what I have to deal with living where I do (Bruce County).
On the flip side ... at least people are suddenly caring about politics. It won't last I'm sure.
It's the first time I've felt the need to speak out against one of our friends... normally I just ignore it and move on but I'm starting to draw a line when people are linking infographs and pictures from sources that are promoting things like homophobia. It's fucking 2015, have a problem with the government but do it sensibly. Ugh.
Oh well, my Canada is being restored. This is what I have to deal with living where I do (Bruce County).
On the flip side ... at least people are suddenly caring about politics. It won't last I'm sure.
gutter_trash
Banned
Their first 3 budgets had deficits above the final early 90s PC budget:
1997 was very boom-time. Certainly they stated reviewing what to cut not long after coming to office and eventually made some deep cuts but it's nowhere near the same as "let's cut out legs off while we're down" recession-austerity that's been proposed/practiced in western countries since then.
They also had to deal with a very real threat at the time that nobody would be willing to buy Canadian bonds, rather than the imaginary threat today.
Liberals.... always cleaning up after Conservatives
To be fair, the years right after Mulroney was pretty dire as Canada was facing credit downgrades at the time. They took measures to control their debt and to kickstart the economy. That's impressive in itself.
There's no being fair here.
gutter_trash
Banned
everybody who is not NDP is a Conservative something something right ?
Correlation and causation are tricky things. If you want to give Martin credit for that, you'd better be willing to give Harper similar credit for his also largely countercyclical spending. In fact, Harper had one of those "major recessions" and spent quite a lot at the insistence of the Liberals and the NDP.
That apparently now needs to be 'cleaned up'.
Look, I'm a Keynesian at heart. Countercyclical spending probably works when it's actually implemented. But Martin was not into countercyclical spending, he was into deficit reduction and posting surpluses as much as possible. That is not Keynesian even if an accident of history made it look like it was.
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In other news, Maclean's is doing panels with some interesting campaign people and Pundit's Guide is livetweeting it.
hydragonwarrior
Member
Just thinking about it, but Harper gov did leave "insurance" to allow them to get back in power.
While in power, they reduced taxes (one of the biggest being that 1% decrease). Once Trudeau and his team look into what gave us a balanced budget, and what they need to fix, I think it is likely they may lean towards increasing the tax back to 15%.
And you know what? BAM. Experienced cons are likely going to take that opportunity once Liberals are labelled the villains by doing this. If they truly did think this far... this is quite the amazing and shitty (for us) strategy.
While in power, they reduced taxes (one of the biggest being that 1% decrease). Once Trudeau and his team look into what gave us a balanced budget, and what they need to fix, I think it is likely they may lean towards increasing the tax back to 15%.
And you know what? BAM. Experienced cons are likely going to take that opportunity once Liberals are labelled the villains by doing this. If they truly did think this far... this is quite the amazing and shitty (for us) strategy.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
The GST decrease was always intended as a poison pill. It decreased the scope of government permanently (the conservatives real goal) unless a future government was willing to raise taxes back, either via sales or income tax.
You act like only the Cons will have PR for such a strategy. Of course there will be those who aren't swayed by any of it and fear tax increases hiding under their bed and around every corner.
There are plenty of places they can increase taxes to collect money without making taxes 15%. If they decide to tax the entire population 15% on sales instead, then they deserve what they get.
The biggest thing that Trudeau got right, and Mulcair didn't in the campaign is that Canadians are willing to go in the other fiscal direction after two decades of tax cuts and reduced investment from the federal government to the point that even the Paul Martin obsession with surpluses that infected Canadians has waned. And with four years he can make this kind of a decision now and it'll be a non factor by the time of the next campaign.
That was the NDP idea.
In any case Trudeau has inherited a pretty tough spot. Oil prices remain low, doesn't seem like there's any chance of them going up any time soon.
He's got a lot of political capital to spend right now. Let's see what he does with it.
Corporations are unfortunately fickle beasts.
An increase in corporate tax could cause businesses to leave and look elsewhere.
Not that I'm against subtle, marginal increases though.
Trudeau is in a horrible spot to start as PM. TPP is right around the corner, and depending on how that goes, it could make or break his run early.
Zombie James
Banned
The GST doesn't have to go up since there are plenty of other ways to generate revenue. Taxing the wealthy more and ending benefits that only benefit the wealthy are good starts, but so is creating new jobs and markets. Marijuana taxes could be bringing in $125M this year for Colorado alone and it's already eclipsed alcohol. It could easily end up being a multi-billion dollar revenue stream in this country on top of the retail and agriculture jobs it would create.
gutter_trash
Banned
Uh... no
Zombie James
Banned
The current federal corporate tax rate is just 15% and that's down from 20% in 2007. How much more corporate welfare do we need to hand out before we realize it doesn't work?
gutter_trash
Banned
it is necessary to have a lower corporate tax rate than the US
I'm not sure I follow...?
Chretien/Martin were facing numerous downgrades because of debt servicing, so cuts to government spending was inevitable. Inflation targets in years prior were already ineffectual so they were really stuck in a hard place.
However, one of the saving graces was that Canada went into this recession in the 90s -- which was the advent of globalization. They pushed free trade deals and other policies, which combined with the lower dollar, lifted Canada out of recession and finally into growth.
The Chretien government thus did something that most governments couldn't replicate: a significant reduction of debt through cuts and a substantial increase in the economy by identifying areas of growth. That's literally something that has not been replicated in the past decade or more.
Conversely, the problem with the Harper stimulus was that it didn't not identify key areas of growth. "Shovel-ready" infrastructure programs don't provide substantial economic returns after the completion of the project. That's not to say that infrastructure projects aren't important, but that their economic benefits aren't sustainable nor long term -- much like how most of the economic benefits (for the general public) around Keystone will be during the construction phase. That is why economic growth during the Harper years were mostly stagnant at a couple percent or lower.
I suppose the greater point I'm trying to make is that it's too simplistic to talk about the Chretien/Martin years or even the Harper years through Keynesian lenses.
(also, it's kind of surreal to finally say "the Harper years" in the past tense)
As much as I disagree with having low corporate taxes, gutter is right about this. Low corporate taxes are unfortunately a reality of the 21st century.
Okay so we'll raise it but keep it lower than the US.
There's a lot of space between the US and Canadian tax rate right now. Lot of room to maneuver.
gutter_trash
Banned
don't forget that Provinces also have their own
SilentMatthew
Member
Edit: nevermind
gutter_trash
Banned
Probably a sugar tax or a fast food tax
I'm fine with this, that would be sensible. Presumably saves the health care system money and increases revenue, that would be a great tax.
Zombie James
Banned
What's triggering this GST paranoia all of a sudden anyway?
I agree. But it's also extremely simplistic to give direct credit for any particular economic growth to the people in charge at the time when there are also a lot of other factors. I'm not arguing in favour of a *more* simplistic model where you *should* give credit to Harper, I'm saying you're arguing on a level that would have to give Harper more credit than he usually gets around here. I don't think either deserve so much credit.
And again, if free trade (which is also related to austerity, incidentally) is the key to saving us, then you have to give credit to Mulroney for setting us down that path. The Liberals campaigned *against* the FTA, remember. This is my overarching point: On this subject, Liberals and Conservatives have been two sides of the same coin since the 80s. Maybe they're somewhat different now, we'll have to see, but right now all I see is cherry picking whether deficits or surpluses are good or bad based on who was in power when they happened.
Also I'm not sure the FT lightning even could strike twice, since NAFTA was really the floodgates opening up our resource sector to foreign capital. You can open it a bit more (like with TPP), but it'll never do now what it did then. So giving the Liberals credit for riding a process that began before they took power and can never be repeated seems incredibly disingenuous to me.
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