Paul Martin (rightfully) blasts Tory spending

[BC_chick]

Needless to say, Paul Martin, the finance minister who balanced the books after the fiscal disaster known as the Mulroney years, is not very happy about Harper's slashing taxes while increasing spending.

"The surplus has been virtually gutted," Mr. Martin said, springing to the edge of an easy chair at his farmhouse in Quebec's Eastern Townships. "What the Conservatives did in two years was to virtually eviscerate, gut that surplus, so it isn't there when we need that margin of manoeuvre."

Top of the list of the Harper government's imprudent moves, in Mr. Martin's view, is the GST cut that took some $12-billion out of government coffers.

Now leading economists predict annual deficits. Don Drummond, who once worked for Mr. Martin at Finance, says the deficit will reach $10-billion in the next two years. Yesterday, the government posted its first monthly deficit in years.

Link

In the two budgets under our current Tory government, we were promised 5.4% increase and 5.6% increase in spending. Instead they actual figures turned out to be 7.5% and 6.9%.

Many economists agreed that cutting the GST while increasing spending was not a good idea. But Harper didn't listen.

Fiscally conservative governments are theoretically supposed to cut spending and taxes.... not cut taxes and increase spending. This is fiscallly irresponsible, even most 5 year olds grasp the concept that you can't spend more than you earn before trouble starts.

How quickly we forgot how happy we were as Canadians when Martin balanced the books, and quickly we forget how much we did not like deficits.

Side note to Argus - well, there goes another difference between Harper and Bush, eh? Looks like Harper is a chip off the old W. block when it comes to deficit spending now too.

[Mr.Canada]

I want spending cut as well.

Martin was a great minister but a terrible PM.

Edited October 25, 2008 by Mr.Canada

[wulf42]

Needless to say, Paul Martin, the finance minister who balanced the books after the fiscal disaster known as the Mulroney years, is not very happy about Harper's slashing taxes while increasing spending.

In the two budgets under our current Tory government, we were promised 5.4% increase and 5.6% increase in spending. Instead they actual figures turned out to be 7.5% and 6.9%.

Many economists agreed that cutting the GST while increasing spending was not a good idea. But Harper didn't listen.

Fiscally conservative governments are theoretically supposed to cut spending and taxes.... not cut taxes and increase spending. This is fiscallly irresponsible, even most 5 year olds grasp the concept that you can't spend more than you earn before trouble starts.

How quickly we forgot how happy we were as Canadians when Martin balanced the books, and quickly we forget how much we did not like deficits.

Side note to Argus - well, there goes another difference between Harper and Bush, eh? Looks like Harper is a chip off the old W. block when it comes to deficit spending now too.

Paul Martin you got to be kidding.......LMAO!!!

Edited October 25, 2008 by wulf42

[BC_chick]

Paul Martin you got to be kidding.......LMAO!!!

http://dissonanceanddisrespect.blogspot.co...just-idiot.html

Wow, forget not being able to formulate your own thoughts on a subject, you are not even capable of paraphrasing the things you read? So you just post a link as a response?

Is that even allowed on this forum?

Edited October 25, 2008 by BC_chick

[wulf42]

Wow, forget not being able to formulate your own thoughts on a subject, you are not even capable of paraphrasing the things you read? So you just post a link as a response?

Is that even allowed on this forum?

That is because i like to back my arguements up with at least some info....instead of unintelligent ramblings based on nothing......and if they tell me to stop posting links hey no problem.....and just to make you happy i will remove the link, i only glanced at it and if there was anything offensive on it ...then that was not my intent.........but pleaaaaaaaaeeeese at least use somebody with credibility when trying to attack our PM ................... opinion's from the Liberal side are meaningless..!

Edited October 25, 2008 by wulf42

[BC_chick]

That is because i like to back my arguements up with some info....instead of unintelligent ramblings based on nothing......and if they tell me to stop posting links hey no problem.... i guess all the other users will have to do the same.

You think your post was an 'argument' and it was backed up with 'some info' while my post was unintelligent and based on nothing even though I based my opinions on actual figures and you left a link with a couple of emoticons?

Alright then, welcome to my ignore list.

[wulf42]

You think your post was an 'argument' and it was backed up with 'some info' while my post was unintelligent and based on nothing even though I based my opinions on actual figures and you left a link with a couple of emoticons?

Alright then, welcome to my ignore list.

oh no ..how will i sleep at night being on your ignore list ....so there was some emoticons......oh my God say it isn't so...Give me a break already...lol................why is it Liberals are all the same they have to resort to personal attacks when someone disagrees with them.......oh well, i guess that is why nobody voted for them.........

[betsy]

Perhaps Paul Martin would care to explain where the money from the gutted EI went?

Edited October 25, 2008 by betsy

[jdobbin]

Perhaps Paul Martin would care to explain where the money from the gutted EI go?

To pay the deficit off if I recall. What is Harper doing with it?

[betsy]

"Martin has said the money could go to pay for a tax cut, improved health care, debt reduction or to help Canada through international economic turmoil."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/1998/10/06/ei981006a.html

So, what's he on about now? When we're actually threatened with the most serious economic turmoil in history!

[scribblet]

Paul Martin only had a surplus because he cut back on transfer payment for health and education, cut back on EI benefits and put the EI money into general funds, they also raised taxes - that's how they did it, on the backs of the taxpayer.

[Bryan]

Martin is an idiot. The only thing He understands about fiscal management is to keep repeating the word surplus. After that, it's all smoke and mirrors. Martin stops paying the basic bills, and tries to claim that as a surplus. Try that with your mortgage sometime and see if the bank thinks you're a good fiscal manager.

[blueblood]

Needless to say, Paul Martin, the finance minister who balanced the books after the fiscal disaster known as the Mulroney years, is not very happy about Harper's slashing taxes while increasing spending.

In the two budgets under our current Tory government, we were promised 5.4% increase and 5.6% increase in spending. Instead they actual figures turned out to be 7.5% and 6.9%.

Many economists agreed that cutting the GST while increasing spending was not a good idea. But Harper didn't listen.

Fiscally conservative governments are theoretically supposed to cut spending and taxes.... not cut taxes and increase spending. This is fiscallly irresponsible, even most 5 year olds grasp the concept that you can't spend more than you earn before trouble starts.

How quickly we forgot how happy we were as Canadians when Martin balanced the books, and quickly we forget how much we did not like deficits.

Side note to Argus - well, there goes another difference between Harper and Bush, eh? Looks like Harper is a chip off the old W. block when it comes to deficit spending now too.

Jesus Christ, Martin overtaxing us, raiding the EI, and sucking the provinces dry while posting a surplus isn't being a fiscal conservative, it's theft. Hell a high school student could do what Martin did as minister of finance. The bankers and the opposition were on the Liberals to do this.

harper is not a company manager, he is a politician with elections to win. People out east and in the cities like gov't spending so people like me have to suck it up.

By the way harper slashed the GST, corporate taxes, and income taxes. Hell he tried to cut spending and bloody Quebec went ape, there we are with the looney left and their double standards. Harper can't win.

[August1991]

Top of the list of the Harper government's imprudent moves, in Mr. Martin's view, is the GST cut that took some $12-billion out of government coffers.

Only a Liberal could consider that a tax cut is wasteful.

The ironic point is that when the government runs a surplus, it in effect reimburses bondholders. IOW, a surplus is essentially similar to a tax cut except it puts money in the pocket of rich bondholders rather than whoever benefits from a tax cut.

[Smallc]

Only a Liberal could consider that a tax cut is wasteful.

Most economists agreed with him when it came to the GST cut. The funny thing is, if they hadn't moved the second one percent cut ahead (because they thought they had too much money. they probably wouldn't be in all that much financial trouble right now.

[August1991]

Most economists agreed with him when it came to the GST cut. The funny thing is, if they hadn't moved the second one percent cut ahead (because they thought they had too much money. they probably wouldn't be in all that much financial trouble right now.

The argument of economists is that a cut in income taxes is better than a cut in a consumption tax (such as the GST).

Martin seems to believe that any tax cut is impudent and seems to view it as a form of waste or loss.

SmallC, I have argued endlessly on this forum that it is govrenment spending that is critical (and too often wasteful) - not the government's fiscal position (surplus/deficit).

-----

As individuals, it is probably a wise idea only to borrow while young for major purchases such as a house, an education or possibly a car. In general, as individuals, one should try to pay this debt as quickly as possible.

The government faces an entirely different situation. A government is nothing like a family. First of all, governments always spend other people's money. In this, it is the spending that matters - since governments never pay for their purchases. SmallC, to understand government, imagine that you did nothing except spend money and you had access to every Canadian's credit and debit cards.

[Smallc]

The government faces an entirely different situation. A government is nothing like a family. First of all, governments always spend other people's money. In this, it is the spending that matters - since governments never pay for their purchases. SmallC, to understand government, imagine that you did nothing except spend money and you had access to every Canadian's credit and debit cards.

That may be how you imagine government, but that's not how I see it. I want my government to be responsible and pay down debt. That way, we can have lower taxes and higher spending in the long run. Tax cuts right now are nice and all, but if all they end up doing is adding to the debt and increasing service charges thereby compounding the problem and resulting in either service cuts or a tax increase at a later time, what have they really accomplished?

[August1991]

That may be how you imagine government, but that's not how I see it. I want my government to be responsible and pay down debt. That way, we can have lower taxes and higher spending in the long run. Tax cuts right now are nice and all, but if all they end up doing is adding to the debt and increasing service charges thereby compounding the problem and resulting in either service cuts or a tax increase at a later time, what have they really accomplished?

That's utter nonsense but rather than argue this in theory, let me be very practical.

When you borrow, what is your best rate? For example, what is the interest rate on your mortgage? (If you don't borrow or don't have a mortgage, imagine what rate a bank would lend to you.)

Now, SmallC, do you know at what interest rate the Canadian federal government borrows? If you don't know: It is below anything that you or I borrow. The Canadian federal government borrows at around 2%-3%.

IOW, the federal government is taxing Canadians (who have a mortgage at 5% or credit card debt at 15%) and using the money to pay back government debt at 3%. A first rule of finance is to pay back the debt of higher interest.

---

I mention all this merely to make you start to understand that governments are not like you or I. Should governments borrow, save? I don't know. I do know that governments must absolutely control spending. It is government spending that is the problem - not government deficits or surpluses. A profligate government (such as Harper's) can also claim to have balanced its budget. Is a profligate government good?

Edited October 26, 2008 by August1991

[Smallc]

That's utter nonsense but rather than argue this in theory, let me be very practical.

When you borrow, what is your best rate? For example, what is the interest rate on your mortgage? (If you don't borrow or don't have a mortgage, imagine what rate a bank would lend to you.)

Now, SmallC, do you know at what interest rate the Canadian federal government borrows? If you don't know: It is below anything that you or I borrow. The Canadian federal government borrows at around 2%-3%.

They're borrowing rate is so low because they are paying down debt so well. They have the highest possible credit rating (trivia, which two provinces also have it?) Every year we spend 15 - 20% of the budget on paying the debt service charges. at over 30B, they are paying about 7% a year. If we get that paid off, we can lower taxes and increase spending with no harm to the country. That should be our goal.

A little pain now for a big gain later.

Edited October 26, 2008 by Smallc

[Argus]

Needless to say, Paul Martin, the finance minister who balanced the books after the fiscal disaster known as the Mulroney years, is not very happy about Harper's slashing taxes while increasing spending.

This kind of simplistic nonsense is irritating to me. It either displays that the writer hasn't got a clue about fiscal history, or is simply to wrapped up in ideology to care.

Mulroney reigned in tough economic times - through no fault of his own. I've posted the facts several times before and no one over there on the Left has ever been able to dispute those facts. Chretien took over near the end of the darkness. His first few years had big budget deficits, just like Mulroney's, but when the world economy improved, taxes started pouring into government coffers, and the fiscal outlook, needless to say, looked far brighter. Paul Martin deserves no real credit for this. Almost any finance minister would have been able to balance the books under the circumstances he faced for most of his tenure.

As to his huge surpluses. I continue to remain surprised that the Left touts these surpluses as responsible government. Remember that during the first few years of his reign Martin and Chretien had drastically slashed transfer payments to the provinces for health, education and welfare. Faced with huge surpluses, did Martin put that money back into health, education and welfare? No. He didn't. Not at all. Instead he played all sorts of accounting games to try and hide the size of these huge deficits so he could resist calls to spend some of it.

Why? Because, the Liberals were riding high in the polls and saw no need to concern themselves with overcrowded schools, long wait times for deteriorating hospitals, or any of the problems of poverty or homelessness. They quite simply DID NOT CARE. Only when the Alliance and PC merged and the poll numbers began to look threatening did Martin start spending - and then he really started spending. The Paul Martin era of fiscal restraint disappeared without a trace, and he started throwing money around like the Liberals of old - the Liberals who had started the huge debt that Mulroney had to face with $41 billion per year interest payments.

Fiscally conservative governments are theoretically supposed to cut spending and taxes.... not cut taxes and increase spending. This is fiscallly irresponsible, even most 5 year olds grasp the concept that you can't spend more than you earn before trouble starts.

The Tories did not expect things to blow up as they did, and have still not declared they will have a deficit. There is room to cut back to avoid a deficit, room to maneuver. On the other hand, if you look at the Ontario Liberals, you'll see a government which has increased program spending by 50%, has already announced a deficit, and refuses to make any kind of statement or forecast regarding the next fiscal, which starts only a few months from now. Their next year's deficit will probably be much larger, and the one after that larger still. And yet few on the Left seem to be questioning their economic stewardship.

I guess McGuinty is just like Bush, eh, Chick?

[wulf42]

It makes me laugh how Liberal supporters try to defend the actions of the Liberal Goverment..............for the life of me i can't understand how people can support a party that .........corrupted healthcare .....destroyed our military........and implemented completely useless gun control laws that don't work and to say the least is confusing even to the Firearms Center....lol and .....implemented weak and useless sentencing that allows violent criminals to get out of prison after just a few years assuming they go at all..........under the Liberal Party Canada was a joke...Harper is trying to undo all the damage now.

[capricorn]

Argus, don't expect Liberals to give credit to Mulroney for having turned around the economy after Trudeau's administration, which included Chretien, increased the federal debt by 1,100%.

In 1984, the Mulroney government inherited a terrible mess from successive Liberal governments. In fact, even Jean Chretien -- who was a finance minister under Pierre Trudeau -- admitted that following 15 years in office: "We left the cupboard bare."

That's a polite way of putting things. The Liberals didn't just leave the cupboard bare, they tore it right off the wall and left a gaping hole that in many respects we are still clawing our way out of. The Tories inherited a deficit of $38.5 billion in 1984, which was nearly nine per cent of the GDP -- the largest deficit by far in the history of Canada in terms of percentage of GDP.

The federal debt had increased by an almost criminal 1,100 per cent under the Trudeau administration, which included Chretien. Remember the interest rates? They had peaked at 22.75 per cent (though world interest rates were high, as well). Program spending under the Liberals had skyrocketed to $1.23 for every dollar collected in taxes.

Think about that. That's akin to someone making $100,000 a year spending $123,000 every single year on food, clothes, heat, entertainment, etc., but does not include capital expenditures -- the mortgage. Just pure "program" or daily expenses.

By comparison, take a look at what kind of financial legacy Chretien and Martin inherited from the Conservatives in 1993.

By the time Tory finance minister Michael Wilson and Mulroney left office some nine years later, the federal government had an operating surplus and the deficit as a percentage of GDP had been reduced by one-third, despite the worldwide recession of 1990-91. In other words, were it not for the interest Canada had to pay on the gargantuan debt the Liberals had solely created to that point, Mulroney would have been running a surplus.

The Mulroney government slashed the rate of growth in program spending 70 per cent. In other words, instead of spending $1.23 for every one dollar collected in taxes, the Tories reduced program spending to 97 cents for every dollar of revenues.

The prime interest rate went from 22.75 per cent to six per cent, the lowest in 20 years, and the inflation rate was 1.5 per cent, the lowest in 30 years.

----

In 2000, the McGill University's North American Studies Institute determined that Mulroney had the best economic record of any PM since the Second World War. In 2003, the Institute for Research on Public Policy ranked Mulroney the second-best PM of the previous 50 years and while he was doing such a bang-up job on the economy, he did a lot for the environment, too. In 2006, a panel of Canada's leading environmental groups, led by now Green party Leader Elizabeth May, determined that Mulroney was the greenest prime minister in history.

In the end, Mulroney inherited a rusty bag of bolts and scrap metal from the Trudeau Liberals and turned those scraps into a finely tuned, well-oiled financial ship of state sailing in the right direction.

That's what Chretien and Martin inherited from Wilson and Mulroney. Even then, in 1992 and 1993, during the election campaign that swept Chretien to power, he was quoted as saying: "zero deficit equals zero hope."

---

It's easy to keep a good machine running -- which is really all Martin did as finance minister -- not so easy to build one from scratch and scrap.

So, right back at you, Mr. Dion. "Look history. Look history." If you do, you'll give credit where it's really due.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/column...cbd731f&p=2

Many Liberals simply refuse to look at the bigger picture or they twist historical facts to suit their purpose. The twisted logic and lies are repeated so often, the gullible don't bother doing their own research to get to the truth. The media describes Martin as the deficit slayer. This mental image is enough to send Liberals into orgasmic heaven.

[William Ashley]

Argus, don't expect Liberals to give credit to Mulroney for having turned around the economy after Trudeau's administration, which included Chretien, increased the federal debt by 1,100%.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/column...cbd731f&p=2

Many Liberals simply refuse to look at the bigger picture or they twist historical facts to suit their purpose. The twisted logic and lies are repeated so often, the gullible don't bother doing their own research to get to the truth. The media describes Martin as the deficit slayer. This mental image is enough to send Liberals into orgasmic heaven.

It is totally clear the Conservative government under Harper has damaged the Canadian Government's Fiscal Position in a way that will set it back atleast 10 or 15 years. They have totally been irresponsible to Canada and its assets, and curried to megacorps.

They have effectively sold off and sold out Canada.

One of the major reasons for this deficit is fighting an unneeded war in Afghanistan.

[William Ashley]

It is totally clear the Conservative government under Harper has damaged the Canadian Government's Fiscal Position in a way that will set it back atleast 10 or 15 years. They have totally been irresponsible to Canada and its assets, and curried to megacorps.

They have effectively sold off and sold out Canada.

One of the major reasons for this deficit is fighting an unneeded war in Afghanistan.

This 10 Billion Deficit is just over half the over $18 Billion the war costs Canada

[jdobbin]

Many Liberals simply refuse to look at the bigger picture or they twist historical facts to suit their purpose. The twisted logic and lies are repeated so often, the gullible don't bother doing their own research to get to the truth. The media describes Martin as the deficit slayer. This mental image is enough to send Liberals into orgasmic heaven.

There is a reason why Mulroney's cohorts were reduced to 2 seats in the election that followed Mulroney leaving. Present day Conservatives should keep that in mind before trumpeting that brilliant "bigger" picture of Mulroney rule.

There was still a huge deficit after 8 years of Mulroney rule. There was no meaningful cuts when he was prime minister. He raised taxes 19 times not including the GST which was a replacement for the MST.

The following years were not just a case of added revenues ending the deficit no matter what twisted logic that Tories wish to repeat with such gullible orgiastic enthusiasm. It required cuts in government service and programming the like of which had not been seen in Canadian history.

Now, we have Harper who spends like the worst of past Liberal governments that Tory supporters here regard with disdain. Harper will be the deficit creator the way he is going.