Jim Flaherty Announced That he Will Have to Raise Taxes

It's almost too easy after the Reformer's attack ads suggesting that Michael Ignatieff will raise taxes, when instead they raise them themselves.

Not that their hypocrisy is really news, but I don't know how their candidates are going to campaign with the usual 'tax and spend' Liberals, when this government now presides over the largest tax increases in our history.

They have also spent and wasted more money than any government in our history, and have the largest deficit. Brian Mulroney held that record before Harper.

And remember they were already in a deficit before the economic crisis hit. 'Tax and Spend Conservatives'? Looks like.

Thomas Walkom rightly suggests that this government needs a reality check.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty acts as if the economic crisis is over. It is not. Friday’s announcement that unemployment is starting to inch its way up again merely confirms what most had suspected: We’re not out of this mess yet. Yet the Conservative government insists that everything is back to normal. This week, Flaherty quietly let slip that Ottawa will cut benefits to jobless workers. On Thursday, he announced plans to raise taxes by hiking the Employment Insurance premiums that workers and their bosses must pay (this even though the EI program is running a $55 billion surplus).

His rationale, that stimulative measures are no longer needed, flies in the face of reality.

We can no longer afford these guys. It's that simple.