Jim Flaherty announced yesterday that he will be cutting public sector jobs by 80,000.Spend us into a deficit and then use that deficit to justify being downright mean. Mike Harris all over again. And remember, that Flaherty, despite gutting Ontario's public sector, never did balance the budget in Ontario, but hid a massive deficit to make himself look good.
Like Harper, Harris had a huge ego to support, so many tax dollars went to making him look good. Signs, ads, image consultants. Sound familiar?
Expect more privatization of public services and a spectatular Harper photo-op coming soon to a station near you. Every scandal or bit of bad news, was offset with a Mike Harris "I love myself" blitz.
And remember the neoconservative (David Frum)indigent rule.
"... the people who suffer in this scenario are those most dependent on government services such as immigrants, the unemployed, pensioners and military veterans".Unless those people are starving and living under a bridge, neocons have no sympathy.
Welcome to a Harper majority.
There's 80,000 people who won't vote for the Harpies again, Em.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention their families and friends.
ReplyDeleteJust look at how many Cons were elected in Ottawa...!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but how dumb can Canadians be??
The whole name of the game that Harper has been playing is Starving the Beast -- the neo-con obsession with shrinking government into oblivion.
The Republicons never got very far -- they only manage the first part of the strategy, which is to increase costs because it is very difficult to shrink government in the U.S. First off, they don't have that many federal government programs to shrink -- defence is their biggest spend. Secondly, the U.S. system is designed with a lot of checks and balances, and so very difficult to attain a position of sufficient power to enact extensive cuts.
But hey... in Canada, the PM of a majority government can do just about anything, and get away with it. Our system of government was not designed for "the perfect storm" of circumstances which we face today, and never contemplated a PM as devious, cunning and maniputalive as Harper. (Heck, I still can't get over the fact that Canadians have been so... gullible... as to elect a party headed by a man who believes that the federal government role needs to be shrunk. Hello!! That's why the guy doesn't have a vision to speak of, or much of a platform!!)
And so now Harper has the government exactly where he always dreamed: he has his hands around the throat of the federal government and is tightening his grip...
First, he created a deficit where there was a surplus by cutting taxes, and then drove up the debt. The tenuous recovery means that he can claim that raising taxes would be bad for the economy, and since few people are economically literate (or at the very least, follow Paul Krugman's columns and blog), they will buy his rationale. (if they knew better, they would know that they worst thing you could do to an economy with depressed demand is cut demand even further by cutting government spending and eliminating government jobs, but most people don't realize that).
This was his plan all along -- Starving the Beast.
He's laughing and merry, I'm sure.
Meanwhile, I feel sick to my stomach.
I just can't get over how so many Canadian voters could be so stupid.