Further Reaction to the Budget
After looking more carefully at the budget, reading the analysis, and the fine details, I am now downgrading it to C- from a B-. Otherwise this was a budget that sounded good on the surface, but below was visionless and seemed more about winning the next election than promoting any vision. I am not doing this as a blind Liberal partisan as I thought Paul Martin's deal with Jack Layton was a bad one. I am doing this because there for a number of reasons for it:
1. Spending increases could cause inflation to rise if continued. Spending increases should not exceed inflation + economic growth, so the budget fails here.
2. There were no across the board tax cuts, instead tax cuts designed at certain groups who are potential conservative voters. I believe individuals should have more money in their pocket and be able to choose how to spend it, therefore while some tax credits to encourage buying greener cars might make sense, an across the board income tax cut is the best solution. It is too bad the party that once championed tax cuts has abandoned this.
3. Spending should be targeted to areas where it is lacking, not to where it will gain votes. Areas such as aboriginals, Post-Secondary Education, and Social Housing should have gotten more, while less in more provincial transfers and vote buying schemes for suburban voters.
4. Equalization should be based on what share of the population one province has. Whatever percentage of the population one has, that is what percentage of transfers they should get. No wonder half of the provinces are not happy. In addition raising expectations so high is partly why some premiers are so enraged. Had Harper like Martin in the 90s not promised anything on the fiscal imbalance (which I don't believe exists), I suspect the provinces would be making less noise.
Now I don't think this budget will likely have too big an impact on the party in the long-run. It will anger some and please others, but since there will be no election over it, I suspect subsequent events will affect the Tory fortunes more.
The only impacts I really see it having is it will increase Jean Charest's chances of re-election, which is a plus for Harper, but if Williams follows through on his promise to campaign against the Tories (which I believe he will) it will making holding the three seats in Newfoundland & Labrador quite a bit more challenging, although not impossible. That being said as angry as I would be if I were a Newfie at the budget, I am not sure that having no government MPs would benefit the province as long as Harper is PM.
In other news Joe Comuzzi was expelled from the Liberal caucus for intending to voting with the Tories on the budget. While I support free votes on most issues, on confidence issues, all members of the party should be required to support the party position or be kicked out. I am sure any leader would have done this if one of their MPs planned to do this. I am also pleased Stephane Dion spoke to Joe Comuzzi to confirm he did plan to indeed do this rather than just go media reports.
1. Spending increases could cause inflation to rise if continued. Spending increases should not exceed inflation + economic growth, so the budget fails here.
2. There were no across the board tax cuts, instead tax cuts designed at certain groups who are potential conservative voters. I believe individuals should have more money in their pocket and be able to choose how to spend it, therefore while some tax credits to encourage buying greener cars might make sense, an across the board income tax cut is the best solution. It is too bad the party that once championed tax cuts has abandoned this.
3. Spending should be targeted to areas where it is lacking, not to where it will gain votes. Areas such as aboriginals, Post-Secondary Education, and Social Housing should have gotten more, while less in more provincial transfers and vote buying schemes for suburban voters.
4. Equalization should be based on what share of the population one province has. Whatever percentage of the population one has, that is what percentage of transfers they should get. No wonder half of the provinces are not happy. In addition raising expectations so high is partly why some premiers are so enraged. Had Harper like Martin in the 90s not promised anything on the fiscal imbalance (which I don't believe exists), I suspect the provinces would be making less noise.
Now I don't think this budget will likely have too big an impact on the party in the long-run. It will anger some and please others, but since there will be no election over it, I suspect subsequent events will affect the Tory fortunes more.
The only impacts I really see it having is it will increase Jean Charest's chances of re-election, which is a plus for Harper, but if Williams follows through on his promise to campaign against the Tories (which I believe he will) it will making holding the three seats in Newfoundland & Labrador quite a bit more challenging, although not impossible. That being said as angry as I would be if I were a Newfie at the budget, I am not sure that having no government MPs would benefit the province as long as Harper is PM.
In other news Joe Comuzzi was expelled from the Liberal caucus for intending to voting with the Tories on the budget. While I support free votes on most issues, on confidence issues, all members of the party should be required to support the party position or be kicked out. I am sure any leader would have done this if one of their MPs planned to do this. I am also pleased Stephane Dion spoke to Joe Comuzzi to confirm he did plan to indeed do this rather than just go media reports.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 5:10 PM
2 Comments:
It's not often that it happens anymore, but I agree with you for the most part here.
We will still agree on some issues. I do think this budget was not exaclty fiscally conservative, but more importantly it lacked any principles or vision. I believe a budget should be about what is best in the long-run, not what will help win the most votes tomorrow. Yes this budget may have put Harper closer to a majority, but it hasn't helped Canada in the long-run. Gordon Campbell's budget in 2002 and Paul Martin's budget in 1995 weren't popular ones, but they did what was necessary and we reaped the benefits in the long-run.
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