[ridenrain]

Proculation Proculation:

ridenrain ridenrain:

What's the alternatives? Take a hard line and stand the chance of being replaced by the goat rodeo coalition? If we stay in power then the same whining artists and poverty pimps can rally their support and we get voted out before anything good can happen.
I'm against government interfering in business but the reality is that politics is all about compromise. Go tell you're riding associates or you're CPC candidates. If you paid to be a member, go tell them what you think and get you're money's worth.

I will continue to vote for them but they may not get my donation this year.

I'm not going to apologize for the party because there's a whole lot of things that I don't like that have or have not been done, but if you expect any party to be exactly what you want, all the time, you'd better run youreself. My bottom line is this party is closest to what I want than all the alternatives.

Every member needs to make up their own mind.. and do keep in mind that much of the chatter on leaders is often comming from those who don't belong to the party anyways.

[ridenrain]

bootlegga bootlegga:

ridenrain ridenrain:

Tell me one democratic politian who won't?
You were all bitching that Harper was an iron-fisted ideolog and now you bitch because he's willing to compromize.

... and youre telling me about convictions?

It's one of the best decisions Harper's made IMHO. Now all he has to do is fulfill his 3 heavy icebreaker promise.

I'm tired of voting in another minority. If they and the Liberals can get something done, then I'm all for it. Harper created this mess with his 'update' in November and hopefully, he learned a valuable lesson when he was forced to visit the GG.

All I want is some work done and the schoolyard bickering/bullying to end.

I agree but ADSCAM and all the other scandals, the insuferable arogance and the pandering to the east coast is simply too high a price for me.

[hurley_108]

Proculation Proculation:

hurley_108 hurley_108:

Proculation Proculation:

When you are in personal financial crisis, you are the kind of guy to get more credit and put yourself more into the red hole?

Government finances should not be thought of as personal finances. In fact, they should be thought of as the exact opposite. Governments should be frugal in times of plenty, saving, and maintaining service, and should be generous and spendy in rough times. That way they moderate, not exacerbate, the economic state, whatever it is.

That's Maynard Keynes way of thinking. It has been proving quite wrong. At least, not the best way to improve economy.

And spending like mad in a boom does help?

[hurley_108]

ridenrain ridenrain:

You asked if I "support selling out priciples in the name of political expediency".

I'm waiting for this democratic politician who refuses to compromise on his priciples.

I never asked anything, I was just clarifying.

[Proculation]

hurley_108 hurley_108:

Proculation Proculation:

hurley_108 hurley_108:

Government finances should not be thought of as personal finances. In fact, they should be thought of as the exact opposite. Governments should be frugal in times of plenty, saving, and maintaining service, and should be generous and spendy in rough times. That way they moderate, not exacerbate, the economic state, whatever it is.

That's Maynard Keynes way of thinking. It has been proving quite wrong. At least, not the best way to improve economy.

And spending like mad in a boom does help?

Absolutely not. In the contrary, it should be a good time to get more out the economy.

[bootlegga]

ridenrain ridenrain:

I agree but ADSCAM and all the other scandals, the insuferable arogance and the pandering to the east coast is simply too high a price for me.

"Insufferable arogance" is the best description I've heard of Harper in a long, long time. Hopefully, some of it was beat out of him in December (for his and his party's sake). If not, we'll go to the polls soon enough.

[hurley_108]

Proculation Proculation:

Absolutely not. In the contrary, it should be a good time to get more out the economy.

How is that not Keynesian?

[Proculation]

That's free market.
Keynes tells that govt. should spend and debt itself in recession. That's that part that's false.

[hurley_108]

Proculation Proculation:

That's free market.
Keynes tells that govt. should spend and debt itself in recession. That's that part that's false.

So a balanced budget is to be the floor? Governments should cut services, cut spending, hike taxes, do whatever it takes to stay in the black even as people are losing jobs and the economy's tanking? Sorry to play a straw man, but I'm trying to understand what you're proposing. What should a government do in a recession?

[Proculation]

I didn't say that the budget must ABSOLUTELY be balanced. But yes, governments should cut spending and ease taxes to help the economy. The only thing the govt. should absolutely do is help the people who lost their jobs with EI, help to get another job, training, etc.

But, the govt. has to let the market play. Else it will only prolong/retard the crisis. Don't forget that a recession is the market correcting itself. The less it plays with the market, the less the recession will be hard.

[hurley_108]

Proculation Proculation:

I didn't say that the budget must ABSOLUTELY be balanced. But yes, governments should cut spending and ease taxes to help the economy. The only thing the govt. should absolutely do is help the people who lost their jobs with EI, help to get another job, training, etc.

But, the govt. has to let the market play. Else it will only prolong/retard the crisis. Don't forget that a recession is the market correcting itself. The less it plays with the market, the less the recession will be hard.

Well, the less the government tries to fight the market, the better. The government's not going to get anywhere propping up failing businesses like the auto sector. So I guess we generally agree. But I do think that the government can do well by being an employer in a recession, by doing infrastructure work, and maintaining service instead of cutting back.

[Proculation]

Infrastructures can be a good thing if it's necessary. Like the Champlain bridge that is falling here in Montreal !

But the budget needs to be controlled. If you spend in infrastructures to employ people, you have to cut in services. Like a family will do: you spend on the house, you have to cut into the theatre, movies, etc. That's generally speaking.

Here, personnaly, i don't really think the construction sector is in trouble. If a lumberman looses his job, how's an engineer post gonna help him ?

[Proculation]

For those who didn't know, there's a 75 billion $ bank bail out in the Flaherty budget.

That's right. The government is taking 2,275$ in each canadian pocket to give to the banks. And that's only for 2008-2009.

[Canadian_Mind]

wall of text. can you summarise?

[Bibbi]

bootlegga bootlegga:

ridenrain ridenrain:

Tell me one democratic politian who won't?
You were all bitching that Harper was an iron-fisted ideolog and now you bitch because he's willing to compromize.

... and youre telling me about convictions?

The point is that whether he compromised or not is open to interpretation. It could be said that since he spent the surplus, he was already deficit financing before the economic downturn. The deficit spending also coincides with the Conservative approach of cut revenues and then use the lack of revenue as an excuse for cutting services and government. Since he is succeeding in that area with this budget, how is it a compromise????

Moreover it is questionable how much he is spending. After all, if the infrastructure spending does not get approved because federal funding cannot be matched by cash-poor municipalities then the money will be tied up in red tape and sitting on the Minister's desk. Communities are already complaining about promised money from a year ago that has still NOT reached them even with matched funds. Promised money is NOT spent money.

Moreover a lot of the expenditures are based on "estimated" costs and if programs for individual tax credits, renovations, etc. contain red tape that does not make them attractive to apply for, then the cost for the government will be far less than projected.

So, it is a great approach to promise lots of stimulus expenditures knowing that because of the manner in which it has been structured that far less will be spent than the "spin" to the media. It is also rather amusing that the Conservatives who are objecting to the stimulus package have not read the "fine print" and the liberal academic leader seems to be deaf, dumb, blind, and politically challenged.