[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Time for a trim (click to view)
Date: March 9, 2010
Remember Stockwell Day? Way back in the early years of Filibuster I used to do a lot of cartoons about him. That was back when he was leader of the Canadian Alliance party, back when that existed.

He's since been appointed president of the Canadian Treasury Board. Since Mr. Day is generally considered to be a strong right-winger, this was interpreted as a sign that Prime Minister Harper intends to "get tough" on fighting the Canadian deficit and scaling back excessive big-government spending. Or so optimistic conservatives had hoped.

Well this week Mr. Day held his first post-scaling press conference, and announced with great pride that he had cut over 400 jobs from the federal payroll, saving the taxpayers a grand total of (wait for it) $1.4 million dollars.

Wow, thanks Dr. Evil.

As Don Martin quotes in yesterday's National Post, Day's cuts cancel out a full 90 minutes of growth in the national deficit.

[Robair]

2,800.00 per job?

[Kjorteo]

I am always caught off-guard by the difference in scale when comparing how much money any given amount is among different scenarios. $1.4 million is too ridiculous to even be considered pocket change for any federal government, as this cartoon correctly points out. If I had $1.4 million, though, I could retire. Seriously, that's well over a hundred years' worth of income.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Does anyone remember these strips from a few years ago? In the former JJ said:

JJ wrote:

Like all surpluses, this one is essentially an admission that the government has taken way more of our tax dollars than they even needed.

But doesn't it seem that the reduction of debt those surpluses meant back then is actually quite needed today!

[Psudo]

Did the reduction of debt prevent the economic problems that lead to the much greater increases of debt from our bailout era? On the other hand, that stubbornly high unemployment rate (8.3% in Canada, 10.4% in the USA) might've been mitigated if it was cheaper to live and work because of lower tax rates. Even if both were equally plausible economic theories, one seeks to repair the government's budget while the other seeks to repair the national economy; isn't the latter the more relevant goal?

Also, $1.4 million / 400 jobs = $3,500 per job. Still pathetic, but more than $2,800. Still more pathetic, it's about 6 cents for each of 22 million Canadian taxpayers. Don't spend it all in one place!

[Voyager]

It does beg the question, what were these 400 jobs doing that only netted 3,500 CAN a year?

[JJ]

Apparently a lot of them were already vacant or dormant positions which is why they were so uncontroversial to cut.

[Mr_Canada]

I'm guessing they just fired a bunch of janitors.