Jim Flaherty's Deficits

Now, one thing the left has got to do is to understand economic reality and then to speak so as to demonstrate this understanding.

Case in point is the blanket condemnation of Jim Flaherty's deficits, which, coming as a result of a stimulus program that was forced onto him by the opposition parties, must sound hypocritical and incoherent to people.

If Flaherty's deficits were slammed because they're a result of useless tax-cuts to the wealthiest and to corporations (tax-cuts that deprive the government of revenue but do practically nothing for society once those revenues go into the private sector), that would be one thing. But it's just "deficits bad!" "a burden of debt for our grandchildren!" and etc.,

When an economy is in free-fall (as ours might have been and may soon be) a government has no choice but to spend massively to reverse things. Deficits will result. So too, if a government wants to build something massive and important, like some infrastructure project that will pay significant dividends later, then a deficit will probably be required.

If a left-wing government is going to do things for the Canadian people, obviously it should tax people who have more money than they know what to do with, but occasionally it will have to incur some deficits and we all need to understand that debt-to-GDP ratios of sixty percent are entirely manageable (indeed that's a far lower debt level than your average Canadian household).