Despite the wrath I’ve seen on the progressive and liberal blogosphere, there are some Liberals (mostly in the caucus) and Liberal bloggers out there who don’t think this Budget had enough poison pills in it to force an election, yet they go on to complain how the Conservatives have whittled away the surplus we had and how they have missed their opportunity to initiate programs. I don’t mean to single her out, but Woman at Mile 0 is one such example:
Thanks to the incredibly irresponsible fiscal management of the Cons it looks like those heady days are now long gone meaning: no new social programs, a scrapped child care program, no new money for seniors, health care, First Nations, low-income housing or the environment. Heck the Cons even scrapped the environmentally friendly car rebate this week, which was one of the only good ideas I thought they had put forward in their last budget.
For the response to that, I quote the Toronto Star editorial today:
..for Conservatives, surpluses are as evil as deficits, if not more so, because they create a demand for more spending, which means bigger government. As their ideal is the smallest government possible, the federal Conservatives resort to tax cuts at every opportunity; they are the surest way to wipe out surpluses and pare down government…in short order, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories have managed to rid themselves of the revenues that could have been used to strengthen this country in social, economic and environmental terms. Any promises of more tax cuts in the next election can only mean an assault on existing government spending is sure to follow.
So, as I said over at her blog, the Conservatives under Harper don’t view this as fiscal mismanagement at all. It’s a means to an end of making sure the federal government can’t do national programs or invest in infrastructure and so on - well past the time this government leaves office. The Cons know that tax breaks which is what led to this paring of the surplus are very politically hard to repeal. It is why we should have brought this government down - that was reason enough to do so in my mind, plus a whole plethora of other reasons I’ve already mentioned on here before. It wasn’t to be, however. The Liberal leadership - or at least the majority of the Liberal leadership - and the Nervous Nellies in caucus (and outside of caucus, if one is to believe the media reports that Martha-Hall Findlay and Bob Rae helped lead the charge against a general election) sat idly by, as the Star says, while this has happened.
Complaining about the Conservatives budget and what it’s doing to our ability to improve this country rings hollow, if you’re unwilling to do anything about it.
Complaining about the Conservatives budget and what it?s doing to our ability to improve this country rings hollow, if you?re unwilling to do anything about it.
So what will you do about it when the Liberals support the budget? Will you switch your support to a party that didn’t?