Publius on the realities of our politics:
Harper by the Numbers
Terence Corcoran on Harpernomics…
The ordinary voter – who is reluctantly dragged to the polls every few years – pays scant attention to political affairs and virtually none to public policy. A half digested series of symbols and impressions fill out their understanding of our government’s role and its operations. The Conservatives (team blue) are the party of fiscal restraint, giving big business a free reign and criminals a hard knock. They are the party of hard practicality. The daddy party as some American commentators have dubbed their Republicans counterparts down south.
The NDP (team orange) are the party of idealistic granola chomping hippies, mouthing happy utopian pleasantries about social justice and being sorry for the poor and weak. The Liberals (team red) are the party of compromise. Some hard practicality (like balancing the budget during the Chretien-Martin era) matched with promises to help the poor and weak, and some nice freebies for the middle class (i.e. “average hardworking Canadian families”). Stephen Harper has successfully convinced enough of the Central Canadian middle class – through bland rhetoric and targeted tax credits – that the Conservatives are now the party of compromise…
It is a law of modern politics that you betray your base and flatter your enemies…
Read on. Publius can both think and write at the same time.
If Terrence Corcoran had spent the last five years at the helm of a minority parliament while at the same time weathering a nasty recession, I’d be more impressed by his comments. The very nature of the beast is compromise. Even so, we’ve come out of Harper’s tenure ahead of most countries.
Corcoran is right in all he says but it is possible to be right and never be in the position to be able to implement all the right things. It is to be hoped that the Conservatives will be given an opportunity to, not only be right in principal, but to have the political power to actually do right.
“We live a politics of symbols rather than reality. The result is a hyper-partisanship and national discourse obsessed with trivia and personality.”
True enough. And what of SDA’s role in all this “hyper-partisanship”?
So, if I’m playing the deep game which Publius’ “analysis” suggests, it’s in my interest to vote NDP, as they’ll enact hard-right policies because they want to betray their base and flatter their enemies.
Um, sure.
My understanding of the Liberal Party of Canada is they have been the Brokerage Party since and including PM Pearson’s administration.
A lesson learned from the Socialist approach learned in the all but official coalition goverment of the day.
Trying to establish PMSH as spendthrift with Corcoran’s own numbers brings roughly a 3 1/2% inflation rate over the 13 years.This is not far removed from the standard inflation goal.
Especially considering the devastation PM Chretien created 1995 to Canada’s Health Act, as Finance Minister Paul Martin cruely cleared up the financial mess, created by PM Trudeau, on the backs of the working poor and middle class.
Just ask Jack Layton, or is he now hiding that light under a basket.
Certainly the spending growth during PM Harpers Government falls within the “rule of 72” when all is considered.Everyone knows this rule right!
If not then maybe a plan to provide financial knowledge to students will inhibit pseudo financial commenters; from continuing to blow smoke. Cheers;
“The very nature of the beast is compromise. ”
Exactly right, Helen. Politics is the art of the possible, and those who forget it go down in flames at the hands of the voters. For more than half a century, the Liberal Party has been the default position of a majority of Canadian voters, and that can’t possibly be changed overnight or even in a couple of minority Parliaments.
Of course Terrence may be right in his ‘raw’ assessment, but conveniently forgets that Harper had his hand forced by the “Coalitionistas” in the 2008 attempted electioneering coup.
Canadians may have rejected the coup, but it came at the price of a $50 billion stimulus package.
Parenthetically, when you build a bridge, tunnel or road improvement this has the intangible of making the free flow of goods and services more robust. ie a more ‘efficient’ economy.
You can carp all you want over ‘fiscal purity’ but unfortunately one needs the political numbers IN PARLIAMENT to effect any substantive change.
Further, had the stimulus spending not taken place our dollar might be $1.50 American and you could kiss your entire export sector goodbye…given the monumental spending exercise that has occured under Obama.
If one is looking for philosophical economic ‘purity tests’ they only exist in imaginary utopias.
You have to work with what you have at your disposal not what would work in a perfect world.
Which is most likely why Terence is writing columns and PMSH is in the PMO.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
All power corrupts…and the will to power corrupts abso…(sorry Lord Acton and Friedrich N.)
Mark
Ottawa
“The very nature of the beast is compromise.”
Exactly! The Anti-Haprer conservatives must not remember what happens when we split our vote. It’s crucial that we sway the voters we need slowly, and convince them that our ideas and principles are correct. If we slam those that need to be swayed they will be longer in seeing the light. Once Harper has his majority it will still be a bad idea to implement the “hidden agenda”, else it will be a short lived majority. As many people have commented before, it will take a very long time to correct the wrongs of a lifetime of socialist infrastructure. Not only do we need a majority in the short term, we need a majority in the middle term else the hard work dating all the way back the Reform party will be lost.
What I’m saying is in 4 years, the new Conservative voters must be satisfied. Think of them as women who wish to be held after making love. They don’t want no Right-wing quickie.
The rule of 72: A formula used to determine the amount of time it will take for invested money to double at a given compound interst rate which is 72 divided by the interest rate.
Compromising doesn’t mean doing the wrong thing. I’m not voting Conservative. They’ve done too much wrong guised as compromise. GM. Wrong. Stimulus. Wrong. Cut GST. Wrong. HRCs are still alive. Wrong. CBC is still alive. Wrong. Libya. Wrong. Export more wrong whether we get a minority or a majority.
Balancing some rights with some wrongs doesn’t make the wrongs right.
I live in Oligula Chow’s riding so destroying my ballot won’t change anything, but I hope any of you that live in blue ridings will put the screws to your candidates on any of the above wrongs.
Export should be Expect.
If pleasing your enemies does not turn them into friends, can we say that pleasing your voters does not turn them into supporters. If your strategy is to win voters by giving them bread and circuses how do you ever take the bread and circuses away and retain their support?
I hear the argument that you must compromise to stay in power and win the voters over. I understand that you must do that. But what are they being won over too?
I liked the policy statement that Harper would implement income splitting when the budget balances. That is the kind of thing that people can sign on for. A little bit of belt tightening will produce a social benefit/negative budget impact that we like. The CPC could also promote a 5 priority platform like they did years ago. There could be some goodies promised (like above) after some house ordering is done.
As it is, by running on a budget that looks like it was proposed to satisfy the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc the CPC is pleasing the voters, but not turning them in to supporters. And they are risking alienating their true supporters because they have not proposed enough fiscal responsibility.
The example of Martin having his budgets lauded for fiscal responsibility while the recent budgets are called ‘drastic’ even though they are much bigger reminds me of the Devine/Romanow comparison here in Sask. Martin and Romanow acted more conservative than the conservatives (thank goodness someone did) yet the conservatives are still considered “evil”. Cue the Star Wars Darth Vader theme.
Spare me Ejay voting for the Liberals isn’t going to help this nation go blue, but thanks for the useless information.
Rose, I didn’t say vote for the Libtards. Not a chance in hell.
Try scrolling down your ballot (there’s literally dozens of choices) or destroying it. Take a picture and send it to PMSH.
I’m telling you that the CPC has screwed up big time and they’ve got lemmings like you shrugging it off as compromise. It’s not compromise. It’s wrong. Doing the wrong thing is always wrong.
Thank you MIkewa @ 6:00 PM. There is a difference between compromise to reach a consensus and brokerage with taxpayer $ to buy votes. Cheers;
eljay,
Maybe you can explain how Mr. Harper made the wrong choice in dropping the GST when he TOLD everyone he was going to do it in the first place?
As for the rest, I agree on GM, however there is no way that the Conservatives were going to pass cuts to the CBC, Kill HRCs, or continue to govern without doing the stimulus that was forced by the opposition parties. A person would have to be blind to assume that any of this stuff was going to happen during a minority Conservative government. Considering you’re in Chow’s riding, nothing you do is really going to hurt the Conservatives anyways. Cheers.
Old Couch
Counterweight.
In the political landscape of today there is little difference between the NDP and the Liberals philosophically.
In recent elections there have been ridings where either the Liberals or the NDP ran lame duck candidates so as to not split the left vote, so it should come as no surprise that they may not even run candidates against each other in critical ridings.
This hopefully will be monitored by the CPC and dully reported to the electorate if it becomes clear that neither is possible of forming a majority. That would be a direct indication of the intention of a coalition government. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of voting if Canadians had the choice between the Ultra left ‘New Democratic Liberal Party’ (NDLP) or the Centrist ‘Conservative Party Of Canada’ (CPC).
Two changes to the Elections Act should be:
• Eliminate the $$/vote allotment to the parties
• A party must run candidates in every province and territories and in at least 90% of the ridings to attain the status of official standing.
Did the Troika pay TC for this hit peace, at this time?
Helen, Hans and Andrew can think, TC – not so much, IMO. He is either living in a bubble and does not comprehend the living breathing Troika beast or he is on the dark (Troika) side.
Andrew,
First, kudos to PMSH for keeping a promise, but it was a silly promise to make and I expect him to keep his promises. He’s an honest guy. I think he just did it to show he would and it was easy to do. After all, Jean Cretin promised it forever and it never happened.
Second, let me pose a question to you in such a manner that if you try to contradict me, you’ll sound like Jack Layton: Suppose you pay 30% in income taxes and you also pay 7% on most consumer goods that you buy. Would you prefer to change your income tax rate to 28% or change the sales tax to 5%?
Think about it. Which one do you choose to pay (some of the time) and which one do you have to pay under threat of @n@l expansion in the pen?
My answer is that I would prefer to pay 15% income tax and you can go ahead an raise that 7% to 22%. I’ll do my best to avoid it.
To me the point is not that he kept the promise but that it was a silly promise to make and a different tax should have been targeted.
Show me where the PC’s ran a deficit SMALLER than the Liberals, ever?
Harper is well on his way, or has actually surpassed Mulroney on spending deficits. Wonder what he will implement to grab more of our money.
The problem with the PC’s is just that … all Progressive, no Conservative.
Jeezus Cripes, eljay. Get that saw out and hack that pesky nose off your mug — that’ll certainly teach it.
Here’s your awesome plan of action:
1. Spoil Vote
2. ????
3. Canada is more awesome!
I don’t like to call anybody stupid, but… yeah.
FOAD elijay if you think you’d (we’d) be any better off with any liberal or socialist in control of the purse strings!
Yeah, the govt has swerved a pretty hard left of late, but swerving the other way at the time would have been a train wreck. A toppled govt with Larry, Curly and Moe in charge, an even bigger stimulus induced deficit, and probably a rudderless economy still looking for its bearings.
Ok, and throw out all of your taxation rate scenarios… Even you would have to acknowledge it’s the libs and ndp that are the big spend/ raise taxes parties. Now how is that a good thing?
Seems that Yukon Gold had you pegged right. Or is it just a frustrated voter venting, who will make the right choice in the voting booth?
It’s not like Republicans staying at home because of McCain and memories of Bush’s liberal domestic policies screwed American conservatives, right? Obama’s been the same as a President McCain would have been, right?
[Is a /sarc even necessary here?]
Obama’s been the same as a President McCain would have been, right?
Not quite.
Fer instance if McLame had been elected President we wouldn’t be anticipating the generational destruction of the Democrat party, instead we’d be watching the Republican party get split in 2 by the Tea Party and the Dems would be winning the White House for at least 2 future election cycles as well as holding the House of Representatives during that time.
As bad as Obama is, he’s actually a blessing in disguise.
@AndyCanuck: it’s not like supporting big-government republicans out of hyperpartisan idiocy screwed the US right over? I mean, garsh, we are going to save the right even if it means destroying the right dammit! /sarc
Look, it’s already obvious that libertarians are smarter. You don’t need to prove it.
I guess we’ll know for sure in 2 years, Oz, but I think it will be too late by then between Obama, the civil service and the Dims’ Senate.
As bad as Obama is, he’s actually a blessing in disguise.
Oz is correct; the USA needed a taste of Canadian-style governance. Only, unlike Canada, they’ll be able to recover.