Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
It's hard for me to be super-outraged about it because I suspect that the Liberals would do the same thing. Harper is a smooth operator--he lacks charisma or any real vision for change (let's not forget that it was Preston Manning who was the right's true visionary back in the day--Harper has always been more calculating and less ideological) but he has parlayed his slim minority into a pretty solid stint in power. He may not be overly ambitious politically, but he's very shrewd--and understands how to use the parliamentary system for political benefit very well.
And lest I be accused of damning with faint praise, I do mean the above as a compliment.
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It could be argued that Manning did more to implement fiscal conservative governance (by bringing a consistent emphasis on defecit elimination to the national adgenda, subsequently coopted by the Liberals) than Harper has done in 4 years in power.
There are layers within layers in all these parties. The last Liberal government attempted to spend to the limit (Kelowna Accord and the proposed Daycare plan) so as to eliminate any surplus fiscal capacity that the opposition could run attractive platforms against. The current "Conservative" government did the same by reducing a hated tax, thereby forcing the previous Liberal election platform to have a massive redistribution of wealth out of Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC (the Green Shift) so they could fund their social spending. I am not against the idea of a revenue neutral carbon tax where carbon taxation on businesses is offset dollar for dollar by business tax cuts, and similarly for personal tax but their plan was to fund social and regional development programs out of that pool that in my opinion do not help macro economic growth.
The Liberals are still stuck in that corner. I don't see how they can have any significant environmental or social agenda when the spending balance is so tight without massive spending cuts, tax hikes, a thinly veiled wealth redistribution like a Green shift or some combination of all three.