[Curtman]

Lemmy wrote:

Good governance, IMHO, is sometimes telling the opposition to fuck off.

Doing it all the time though, is why we're discussing this in the 'Whither Stephen Harper' topic. It's because of an inability to compromise, that I'm afraid Iggy has as well. Telling the opposition to fuck off is completely unproductive.

[DerbyX]

Lemmy wrote:

Curtman wrote:

The opposition wasn't hounding them for debt repayment.

But the economics profession sure as hell was.

Curtman wrote:

They said they were robbing Canadians by paying down debt instead of giving tax cuts. The Liberals gave us 50/50 debt repayment -vs- tax cuts. They cut corporate taxes to a level that was among the lowest in the G7, and also cut personal income tax.

Good governance, IMHO, is sometimes telling the opposition to fuck off. You say 50-50 debt reduction versus tax cuts. I say that that 50% that's debt reduction amounts to a small percentage of the total budget surplus. That's the missed opportunity.

Curtman wrote:

They aren't my numbers, they come from the article I quoted.

I just meant that others on CKA have posted vastly different numbers. Yours and mine (well, StatsCan's, really) are close (and, IMPO, accurate).

Curtman wrote:

I respect your opinion on this stuff because you've spent your life studying it. I'm a casual observer, so if I'm wrong about this please correct me. From what I see though, the Liberals were doing a good job of debt repayment (maybe not deserving a gold star), but that ended when the conservatives came in and cut taxes rather than repay the debt. They cut a similar amount of tax revenue to the deficit numbers we see today.

I wouldn't describe government debt managament as my area of expertise; certainly not my life's work, but thank you. I see my role in this debate (which seems to come up every few months on CKA) as trying to cool some of the party-based rhetoric from both sides. When you step back, neither party has a very good track record of fiscal responsibility. You say the Liberals did a "good job" on debt reduction. I say "Compared to the Conservatives they did a good job, but compared to an objective standard, they did not."

The conditions were ripe to reduce the debt 10 times as much as they did. In that sense, they may have failed WORSE than the Conservatives. To apply one of my ham-handed baseball analogies: The Conservatives struck out with the bases empty. The Liberals made some contact, but grounded out weakly with the bases loaded.

Well I'll say this about you. You are one of the few people who reconcile your belief in tax levels (I believe you have said they are much higher then they should be) with what you want out of government spending, ie you don't demand expensive government services at the same time as complaining how much you pay in tax.

I agree that cutting debt is the thing to do when you have surpluses but as far as the stascan numbers go both you (or perhaps it was winipegger) and I posted data showing that the declared surplus was in most cases the exact amount slashed from the debt.

Are you saying they had a larger surplus then declared or are you saying they had smaller surpluses then they could have?

The only problem I have with your argument isn't the math or logic but rather the political reality of the situation. Sure the Libs could have further reduced spending (or not provided any tax cuts) but a lot of people have very different (and just as valid) ideas on what we should have done. Many people on this forum (tax paying voters all) think the Libs were downright miserly in their defence spending. They post things like the Libs robbed the military of some 20-30 billion dollars and that is just what they cut. These posters all wanted an increase in spending, in some cases a rather large increase.

The economists might have been screaming for greater debt reduction but with all due respect they weren't charged with defending the nation or with peacekeeping abroad. I find it hard to believe we could have achieved a 10 fold debt reduction without a complete sell-off of the military.

That is to say nothing of all the other departments that had their budgets decreased.

Where exactly was this money supposed to come from (also bear in mind many think it all came from raiding the EI fund unfairly)? Please don't just say "cutting wasteful spending" because everybody wants that.

[bootlegga]

Lemmy wrote:

Curtman wrote:

The opposition wasn't hounding them for debt repayment.

But the economics profession sure as hell was.

Curtman wrote:

They said they were robbing Canadians by paying down debt instead of giving tax cuts. The Liberals gave us 50/50 debt repayment -vs- tax cuts. They cut corporate taxes to a level that was among the lowest in the G7, and also cut personal income tax.

Good governance, IMHO, is sometimes telling the opposition to fuck off. You say 50-50 debt reduction versus tax cuts. I say that that 50% that's debt reduction amounts to a small percentage of the total budget surplus. That's the missed opportunity.

Curtman wrote:

They aren't my numbers, they come from the article I quoted.

I just meant that others on CKA have posted vastly different numbers. Yours and mine (well, StatsCan's, really) are close (and, IMPO, accurate).

Curtman wrote:

I respect your opinion on this stuff because you've spent your life studying it. I'm a casual observer, so if I'm wrong about this please correct me. From what I see though, the Liberals were doing a good job of debt repayment (maybe not deserving a gold star), but that ended when the conservatives came in and cut taxes rather than repay the debt. They cut a similar amount of tax revenue to the deficit numbers we see today.

I wouldn't describe government debt managament as my area of expertise; certainly not my life's work, but thank you. I see my role in this debate (which seems to come up every few months on CKA) as trying to cool some of the party-based rhetoric from both sides. When you step back, neither party has a very good track record of fiscal responsibility. You say the Liberals did a "good job" on debt reduction. I say "Compared to the Conservatives they did a good job, but compared to an objective standard, they did not."

The conditions were ripe to reduce the debt 10 times as much as they did. In that sense, they may have failed WORSE than the Conservatives. To apply one of my ham-handed baseball analogies: The Conservatives struck out with the bases empty. The Liberals made some contact, but grounded out weakly with the bases loaded.

A good, honest and non-partisan post.

[Lemmy]

DerbyX wrote:

Well I'll say this about you. You are one of the few people who reconcile your belief in tax levels (I believe you have said they are much higher then they should be) with what you want out of government spending, ie you don't demand expensive government services at the same time as complaining how much you pay in tax.

That's because few people have ever looked into a government office, any office, and seen the sorts of things that tax dollars are spent on. If more people did, they'd see that massive slashes could easily be made WITHOUT affecting the services people demand from government.

DerbyX wrote:

I agree that cutting debt is the thing to do when you have surpluses but as far as the stascan numbers go both you (or perhaps it was winipegger) and I posted data showing that the declared surplus was in most cases the exact amount slashed from the debt.

Are you saying they had a larger surplus then declared or are you saying they had smaller surpluses then they could have?

There are two kinds of surpluses: intended (ie, written into the budget) and surprise (when at the end of the fiscal year you collected more tax money than expencted, due to the hot economy). None of that unexpected surplus (approaching $100B between 1997 and 2006) ever went to debt reduction. I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but Canada began running a budget surplus in 1997 and in NONE of the years between 1997 and 2006 did the Federal government direct even 20% of that total surplus toward debt reduction.

http://www.cga-canada.org/en-ca/ResearchReports/ca_rep_2008-07_fb-surplus.pdf

http://www.fin.gc.ca/pub/frt-trf/index-eng.asp

DebryX wrote:

The only problem I have with your argument isn't the math or logic but rather the political reality of the situation. Sure the Libs could have further reduced spending (or not provided any tax cuts) but a lot of people have very different (and just as valid) ideas on what we should have done. Many people on this forum (tax paying voters all) think the Libs were downright miserly in their defence spending. They post things like the Libs robbed the military of some 20-30 billion dollars and that is just what they cut. These posters all wanted an increase in spending, in some cases a rather large increase.

The economists might have been screaming for greater debt reduction but with all due respect they weren't charged with defending the nation or with peacekeeping abroad. I find it hard to believe we could have achieved a 10 fold debt reduction without a complete sell-off of the military.

That is to say nothing of all the other departments that had their budgets decreased.

Where exactly was this money supposed to come from (also bear in mind many think it all came from raiding the EI fund unfairly)? Please don't just say "cutting wasteful spending" because everybody wants that.

ALL of those unintended surpluses SHOULD have gone to debt reduction. NONE of it did. That could have been debt reduction without any political fall-out because it was "found money". But the Liberals chose to piss it away on new waste instead of making the responsible choice. There was no needed cutting from the CFs or EI or anywhere else.

[EyeBrock]

Searching through old threads.....hmmmm.

Can you say 'hidden agenda'?

[EyeBrock]

Well you are a polite one eh?

I have special powers and I see your future on this forum may be short......

[stratos]

Tinfoil hat club?

[stratos]

The moment I hear someone say they "don't have an agenda" I know its a lie.

[Lemmy]

What's that that I can hear off in the distance? It sounds like a hammer of a sort.

[EyeBrock]

cdntech wrote:

Listen EyeBrock - you can go paint yourself blue - and you and your friends can all paint yourself whatever poltical colours you want - green, red, orange, or whatever else there are... and you can scream, yell, and try and talk louder or make the more "bone chilling accusation" against someone... but here's what i'll worry about - what's going on in the streets. what people are saying. and who caused this problem... I want McGuinty gone for the g20 too. I also want the cops charged for abuse of power, and disrespect of the charter of rights and freedoms.

but you'll probably go back to some sort of label for me. like liberal... or someone with a hidden agenda. listen - your agenda is the conservative party -and I know you take every chance you can get to earn some cheap political points. wake the f**** up

Nice.

Are you just looking for a fight?

[andyt]

EyeBrock wrote:

cdntech wrote:

Listen EyeBrock - you can go paint yourself blue - and you and your friends can all paint yourself whatever poltical colours you want - green, red, orange, or whatever else there are... and you can scream, yell, and try and talk louder or make the more "bone chilling accusation" against someone... but here's what i'll worry about - what's going on in the streets. what people are saying. and who caused this problem... I want McGuinty gone for the g20 too. I also want the cops charged for abuse of power, and disrespect of the charter of rights and freedoms.

but you'll probably go back to some sort of label for me. like liberal... or someone with a hidden agenda. listen - your agenda is the conservative party -and I know you take every chance you can get to earn some cheap political points. wake the f**** up

Nice.

Are you just looking for a fight?

Ah, come on Brock. I made an entrance just like this and now you love me. Plus he makes some good points, tho not just about you. I think he just lurked for a while, caught the lay of the land and is doing as the Romans do.

[Zipperfish]

Lemmy wrote:

That's because few people have ever looked into a government office, any office, and seen the sorts of things that tax dollars are spent on. If more people did, they'd see that massive slashes could easily be made WITHOUT affecting the services people demand from government.

My buddy in the health-care field hears this all the time. "It's just a matter of finding effciencies." They've been cut to the bone on their operating costs, on more than one occassion.

In order to control costs, they moved spending authorties up the management line--"Want to buy a pen. The Executive Director will need to approve that so submit your TPS report and justification memo." The result? A burgening middle management. Burgeoning "costs centres" (HR and finanace departments). High transaction costs for people on the ground who want to spend, because of teh attendant approvals and paperowrk. Net result: Costs have not gone down very much. Service has probably gone down more. Long term structural deficit issue becasue of too many staff in cost centres.

I'm not necessarily arguing with you, but just pointing out that the idea that someone just has to come in get rid of waste is a little naive. As my friend said, managing bureaucracies is fundamentally difficult becasue you don't have the profit motivator that you have in industry, you are in a heavily unionized environment and the masters of the system (politicians) have a five-year "vision" window.

[EyeBrock]

andyt wrote:

EyeBrock wrote:

cdntech wrote:

Listen EyeBrock - you can go paint yourself blue - and you and your friends can all paint yourself whatever poltical colours you want - green, red, orange, or whatever else there are... and you can scream, yell, and try and talk louder or make the more "bone chilling accusation" against someone... but here's what i'll worry about - what's going on in the streets. what people are saying. and who caused this problem... I want McGuinty gone for the g20 too. I also want the cops charged for abuse of power, and disrespect of the charter of rights and freedoms.

but you'll probably go back to some sort of label for me. like liberal... or someone with a hidden agenda. listen - your agenda is the conservative party -and I know you take every chance you can get to earn some cheap political points. wake the f**** up

Nice.

Are you just looking for a fight?

Ah, come on Brock. I made an entrance just like this and now you love me. Plus he makes some good points, tho not just about you. I think he just lurked for a while, caught the lay of the land and is doing as the Romans do.

You had better grammar!

[Zipperfish]

andyt wrote:

Ah, come on Brock. I made an entrance just like this and now you love me. Plus he makes some good points, tho not just about you. I think he just lurked for a while, caught the lay of the land and is doing as the Romans do.

Love you too, andyt. But the av's got to go.

[andyt]

Zipperfish wrote:

andyt wrote:

Ah, come on Brock. I made an entrance just like this and now you love me. Plus he makes some good points, tho not just about you. I think he just lurked for a while, caught the lay of the land and is doing as the Romans do.

Love you too, andyt. But the av's got to go.

Eh?