Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
What has he done that was fiscally irresponsible? Asking for serious. I thought he was the one who forced them to go back and lower the tax increase a while back, but I could be wrong, my memory is fuzzy.
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No--McIver voted for the 6.7% tax increase. He now promises to lower it to 4%, but won't say how. He also voted for the 3$ Park N' Ride fee, and now promises to lower it, but won't say how, and won't say why he supported it in the first place. Ditto a host of other things: one of the most surreal things about this election is that Ric McIver has really been running against the past incarnation of himself--which makes it little wonder that he's utterly failed to gain any traction, in spite of being the most well-funded candidate with the most experience.
But here's the real rub: there are two kinds of fiscal irresponsibility. One is overspending on unnecessary services. The other is pandering to the electorate by promising tax cuts that we can't afford. The current budget projects a 60 million dollar shortfall, and that's with the tax increase that McIver supported in the first place. The fact that he won't say how he can get to a 4% increase worries me: is he committing to tough cuts to programs (nothing in his record tells me that he's a guy willing to make tough decisions) or is he committing to years of deficit spending (this is far more likely)?
Not to mention the most damning fiscal irresponsibility, which is his pandering to developers, which is going to cost this city way more in the long run than an airport tunnel ever could. We need smart and conscientious urban planning in this city--we need a sustainable fiscal model, we need to control sprawl, etc. etc. The list of really important things that McIver just simply
does not even address in his platform is
shocking. Instead we get a species of the same rhetoric we get from every politician: I will take care of your money, but I can't tell you how. Just trust me, I root for the same hockey team that you do.
Promising lower taxes, preaching fiscal responsibility.... these are the definition of pandering, lowest-common-denominator politics. McIver had the opportunity to give us something more, but he's left us with a suitcase full of buzzwords and his track record--neither is very encouraging.
I actually still think he is the favourite to win to-morrow (though I hope to be proven wrong), but there is no doubt in my mind that he is the third-best choice among the remaining serious candidates.