You read that title and you expect to see some sort of diatribe about "fiscal responsibility" or "harsh realities" or something right?
But when I read headlines like that I generally think that I'm in for a heaping helping of neo-liberal delusions and hypocrisy or some mewling nonsense from a "social democrat" who drank their kool-aid.
"Conservatives" tend to be the biggest deficit spenders. (Espousing tax cuts that only weaken the revenue base, increase inequality, and make us poorer as a society.) [In the USA there's an unbroken post-1945 tradition of Democrats (who are "left-wing" in what passes for the political spectrum in there) producing higher GDP growth than Repugs.] It's been neo-liberal free trade deals, deregulations, tax-cuts, and monetarist anti-inflation policies that have brought us to this sorry state.
Always remember: In Canadian economic history, when honestly compared against the Liberals and the Conservatives, the NDP has NOTHING to apologize for. NOTHING. We have followed mainstream neo-liberal dogma for decades now with nothing to show for it. Their policies have failed. It is long past time to dismiss idiotic assertions of the dangers of left-wing economic policies.
Simple honesty demands it.
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I know I'll never be able to put the word "economist" (or any derivative thereof) on my resume. It gauls me how much money has been wasted under Mulroney and Reagan in the '80's. I heard not too long ago on the radio that the gov't of Alberta will be taking in oil sands revenues something of the order of 7 billion in the near future. I would love to know where the hell all the other money went as our hospital for one is pathetically small for the size of our community....and don't even get me started on the state of education....I used to teach for a few years but I'll leave that for anther day.
I am interested in the NDP's take. I'm willing to keep an open mind. I wish the new NDP leadership luck (honestly) as they have quite the task of breaking into the West and big chunks of Ontario. Having lived in both these places, they are about as blue as you can get.
One doesn't have to be an economist to discuss economic policy. Given their track-record of failure they should be happy to have other points of view in the market place of ideas.
People just need to avoid mindlessly embracing conventional wisdom. The "good on the economy" harpercons have a finance minister who was $50 billion off in his revenue forecast one year.
No other finance minister in Canadian history has ever been so incompetent.
Jim Flaherty could argue that it was the stimulus spending that forced him from his "small surplus" forecast to the over $50 billion deficit that we got instead.
Except to do that he'd have to admit that the stimulus program which helped to mitigate the international financial crisis had to be forced upon him by the opposition and that left to him we would have plummeted into a downward spiral.
But he never has to wear that shame because he's a "conservative" and the conventional wisdom is that they've got money smarts.
It's complete bullshit.
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