National Post: Harper No Fiscal Conservative

[Wild Bill]

Then vote Liberal. No conservative in the history of conservatism has lived up to their promise. Who has? The Liberals.

Did they promise to steal our money, a la AdScam?

[Evening Star]

There was a similar editorial in the November Maclean's: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/15/politics-all-the-way-down/

I'll freely admit that I'm glad Harper's government has been less right-wing than I expected them to be though.

[Shady]

That's generally true, but with reduced growth comes reduced growth in revenue. It isn't rocket science...it's economics .

Exactly. Some people just don't have a good grasp on economics, or logic for that matter. They continue to deny facts. Because facts are kryptonite to their arguments.

[nicky10013]

That's generally true, but with reduced growth comes reduced growth in revenue. It isn't rocket science...it's economics .

Yeah, but the key point is there's still growth. The amount of money coming into federal coffers still would've gone up. The money didn't drastically tail off.

[nicky10013]

Exactly. Some people just don't have a good grasp on economics, or logic for that matter. They continue to deny facts. Because facts are kryptonite to their arguments.

So where are your facts?

[Smallc]

Yeah, but the key point is there's still growth. The amount of money coming into federal coffers still would've gone up. The money didn't drastically tail off.

No, but when you have a certain projection in spending increases, even just to keep up with inflation, and you have another projection of revenue increases....even a small change can result in billions of dollars one way or another.

[nicky10013]

No, but when you have a certain projection in spending increases

Bingo.

[Smallc]

Bingo.

? Without the recession in the US, the projections worked. Yes, surpluses were to get smaller, and I don't really like that, but the budget was balanced.

[nicky10013]

? Without the recession in the US, the projections worked. Yes, surpluses were to get smaller, and I don't really like that, but the budget was balanced.

No it wasn't. I remember to this day Flaherty announcing a small deficit of a billion dollars befoer the recession ripped everything apart.

Just because the recession was happening in the US doesn't mean that it had here. It also doesn't mean that they weren't burning through cash. In the January 27th, 2008 budget, Flaherty said Canada had run a small deficit of 1.1 billion over the year 2007. Considering the recession didn't start here until Q2 of 2008...

[Saipan]

Just because the recession was happening in the US doesn't mean that it had here.

In every country on the globe.

As always.

In fact it hit even harder in Europe.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Saipan

[Smallc]

No it wasn't. I remember to this day Flaherty announcing a small deficit of a billion dollars befoer the recession ripped everything apart.

Canada didn't go into deficit until the very end of the 2008 - 2009 fiscal year. You're remembering thins incorrectly.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Smallc

[nicky10013]

Canada didn't go into deficit until the very end of the 2008 - 2009 fiscal year. You're remembering thins incorrectly.

And yet we still weren't in recession.

[nicky10013]

In every country on the globe.

As always.

In fact it hit even harder in Europe.

Do you even know what a recession is?

[Smallc]

And yet we still weren't in recession.

IF we weren't in recession at that time, growth was at or near zero.

[ccen]

Harper wanted to model his party not after the PC party which tried to tackle Trudeau's deficit but instead wanted to model it after Ronald Reagan's party from 1980 onward which he was the one who created the largest deficit at the time and it only got worse until what you see right now which is a country on the verge of depression and being owned by China. I hope Canada seeks trade with other countries and gets away from being America's main trading partner. It would do us good in the long run.

[nicky10013]

IF we weren't in recession at that time, growth was at or near zero.

It was small, but the economy was still expanding and with it revenues.

[PIK]

Fiscal conservatives have been extinct in North America for more than 30 years. The only meaningful attempts to balance spending with revenue in Canada since Iv been alive (Im 38) came during Paul Martins terms as finance minister.

Canadians want everything, but get upset when the bill comes in. We just went thru a world recession and we have only a 50 billion dollar debt, yes people ''only'' it is a drop in the bucket. Edited January 19, 2011 by PIK

[Jack Weber]

Canadians want everything, but get upset when the bill comes in. We just went thru a world recession and we have only a 50 billion dollar debt, yes people ''only'' it is a drop in the bucket.

But we were told by Slasher Jimmy that there would be no deficit and there was no recession?

Is the above a tacit admission that the fiscal guru's in the Conservative Party( ) were a little "off" on the thier economic predictions?

[Saipan]

But we were told by Slasher Jimmy that there would be no deficit and there was no recession?

We were told by Jean The Hillside Strangler that if elected he'll kill the GST and NAFTA.

Then he fired Sheila Copps when she reminded him of that.

[ccen]

We were told by Jean The Hillside Strangler that if elected he'll kill the GST and NAFTA.

Then he fired Sheila Copps when she reminded him of that.

Well the Liberals discovered that NAFTA and the GST were good policies and why would a government want to damage themselves to remove something they promised in a campaign. If it is something that benefits the country economically then I say keep it.