Quote:
Originally Posted by Beninho
Harper had a lower deficit during the worst global recession of the last century. I was never even a huge Harper fan but Canada is in desperate need for a PM who is an economic expert. Not sure that is coming regardless who is elected but that number is legitimately breathtaking in a bad way
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Pretty much every first world country went bigger on stimulus this time and it worked. Unemployed stayed low, the harm to individuals and the economy was minimized. But it caused a bit of inflation and turns out that voters really hate inflation. So now all the incumbent governments are getting turfed, and the lesson for politicians is that even though stimulus worked economically, you're better off with austerity politically. Next recession we'll probably screw it up with austerity because voters collectively didn't recognize that their governments actually did a a great job and we'd rather have a small percent of the population starve in unemployment that spread the pain around with inflation.
Also $55.6B in 2010 is $76.6B in 2024 dollars. Not that I care. That was also stimulus spending that happened thanks to Liberals and NDP threatening non-confidence over Harper's initial austerity plans, and it was a good deficit to run.
I have a much greater objection to the structural deficit Harper created by cutting the GST, which was economic nonsense that used up our "fiscal powder" to buy votes. Hrm...
