[unimaginative2]

Here's a National Post take...



Harper, wise like a fox
John Ivison, National Post
Published: Friday, November 02, 2007

OTTAWA -Stephen Harper offered another example this week of how far ahead of his political adversaries, and the pundits, he really is. While much ink was spilled on whether Stephane Dion would bring down the government over the mini-budget, Mr. Harper was already looking ahead to the next move on the chessboard.

That's because he had no expectation the Liberals would vote against a $60-billion tax giveaway. Instead, he designed it to drain the government's coffers of funds with which Mr. Dion could launch a credible election campaign.

As the Tories noted in a release yesterday, Mr. Dion has already committed to spending the $6-billion a year GST cut on three different initiatives: his own income tax cuts, a child-care package and a cities agenda. Then there's the $5-billion pledge to implement the Kelowna Accord, ambitious national strategies to combat global warming and so on.

Unfortunately for Mr. Dion, even the most optimistic private-sector forecasts suggest there will be no money in the kitty to blow on multiyear, multi-billion-dollar commitments once Jim Flaherty has delivered the spring budget.

According to the government's own figures, the surplus will be $11.6-billion this year, of which they plan to use $10-billion to reduce the national debt. This leaves $1.6-billion to spend this year, $1.4-billion next year and $1.3-billion in 2009-10 (after $3-billion in debt repayment in each of those years).

The government has low-balled these figures for years but the average private-sector projections are similarly pessimistic about the ability of the economy to keep racking up double-digit surpluses as far as the eye can see. The best guess of such forecasters as the Conference Board and Global Insight is that the surplus will come in at $2.9-bllion this year (after the $10-billion debt repayment), $2.9-billion next year and $2.3-billion in 2009-10 (again after $3-billion is spent on the debt).

No wonder Mr. Dion said he would consider rescinding the GST cut. Unless he raises taxes or contrives to force an election before the government can enact the $10-billion debt repayment, he will quickly discover that the only national programs he can afford are sprucing up Canada's heritage railway stations and beautifying Prime Ministerial grave sites.

In May, Liberal finance critic John McCallum pushed the idea of raising the GST back to 7% and was shouted down by caucus colleagues who said it would be electoral suicide to increase the most hated tax in Canada. But even the McCallum plan was proposed as a means of funding broad-based income tax cuts, not to provide general revenue for social programs.

One Liberal pointed out that the Conservatives will be constrained by the same fiscal handcuffs, but this ignores the fact the Tories will feel the benefit of this week's tax cuts for some time to come -- the GST cut comes into force on Jan. 1, while the cheques from the retroactive income tax cut will start landing in mail boxes in April. Moreover, the government has no plans to spend billions on expensive social programs that don't currently exist.

In the end, Mr. Harper has simply outfoxed his opponent. Mr. Dion was left with the choice of inviting immediate electoral extinction or deferring despair until he is obliged to produce a platform on a shoestring. Liberals must hope he chose wisely.

jivison@nationalpost.com

 

[JasonParis]

According to the government's own figures, the surplus will be $11.6-billion this year, of which they plan to use $10-billion to reduce the national debt. This leaves $1.6-billion to spend this year, $1.4-billion next year and $1.3-billion in 2009-10 (after $3-billion in debt repayment in each of those years).

Seems like an issue to bring down the government over, non?

 

[CDL.TO]

It's both depressing and maddening to read an article which IMO can be summed up by "We're so clever! Now we have no money to spend on anything! We've handcuffed government so now we can't possibly improve the environment, healthcare, or keep previous commitments! We've decimated the budget surplus; why, if the economy took a turn for the worse we'd be left we no leeway! Look how clever we are! Dion will never be able to fix this!"

 

[Hydrogen]

Harper outfoxed his opponent?

He intends to leave the cupboard bare, that's all. And it fits perfectly well with his philosophy to reduce the effectiveness of the federal government - which is a subject that was raised in the throne speech. Harper and the Conservatives have no intention of starting new federal programs; that's just way too left wing for them. Should they run a deficit, they'll simply slash spending.

In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what effect the high dollar will have on the trade surplus.

 

[unimaginative2]

Tories take another swing at Dion
Portraying Liberal Leader as indecisive and keen to increase the GST, new attack ad warns Canadians he's 'not worth the risk'

GLORIA GALLOWAY

November 3, 2007

OTTAWA -- A Conservative attack ad that debuts this weekend will pounce on Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion for musing that his party might rescind GST cuts introduced by the Harper government.

Like two series of ads that preceded it, the new television and radio spot will tell Canadians that Mr. Dion is not a leader - and will repeat a clip recorded during the Liberal leadership campaign in which he asks an opponent if he thinks it's "easy to make priorities."

"Stéphane Dion, he's made billions of dollars in spending promises with no clear priorities," says the voice-over announcer. "It's no wonder the Liberals are considering a multibillion-dollar tax grab by hiking the GST. That's right, you'll pay more GST for his lack of priorities."

Mr. Dion is "not worth the risk," the announcer warns in ominous tones.

The Conservatives, who are flush with cash thanks to years of successful donation drives, have the ability to pump out between-election ads that the other parties cannot match.

And, despite the common wisdom that Canadians do not like attack ads, previous Tory ads that bashed Mr. Dion's leadership skills proved successful.

This round capitalizes on comments the Liberal Leader made to reporters this week when he was asked, after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's economic statement, whether he would consider returning the GST to 7 per cent if the Liberals won the next election.

"We will consider if in our plan we need to revisit the decision of the government about the GST. We'll consider it," he said after his weekly national caucus meeting Wednesday.

Liberal finance critic John McCallum later clarified that Liberal governments have not raised taxes since the budget was balanced in the 1990s and that, although the Liberals prefer income tax cuts to sales tax cuts, Mr. Dion never said he was going to increase the GST.

Rather, said Mr. McCallum, "he said that he wants to listen to the opinions of Canadians about the best way to reduce taxes."

The Conservatives didn't hear Mr. Dion in quite the same way.

"Both the Leader of the Liberal Party and his finance critic have admitted they are actively considering an increase in the GST," Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said in a statement released by the party to announce the new ads.

"Such a move would cost the average Canadian family hundreds of dollars per year in extra taxes."

But Liberal MP David McGuinty said yesterday that the whole concept of the ads is preposterous and that, while economists say cuts to consumption taxes will not help the economy, the notion that the Liberals plan to raise the GST is "absolute nonsensical talk."

Mr. McGuinty also scoffed at the tag line that says Mr. Dion is not worth the risk.

"He's obviously worth millions of dollars in advertisements. If he's not worth the risk, why are they desperately trying to contain the risk then?" he asked.

"I think that this indicates that they are very, very worried about Mr. Dion. They are very worried that when Mr. Dion gets an unfettered opportunity to speak to Canadians in an ultimate election, they're worried - and their polls must show - that he's got great capacity for growth."





Dion 'stumble' only flash of real politics
Headshot of Rex Murphy

REX MURPHY

Commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup
November 3, 2007

Stéphane Dion just cannot get a break.

Every report on the Liberal response to the GST tax cut this week indicates the federal caucus was of one mind with its leader. The cut was bad economics. They didn't agree with it.

And yet, when Mr. Dion stood before the cameras to give his response to Jim Flaherty's out-of-Parliament budget statement and mused that his party was willing to consider undoing the Tory cuts, a petty version of all hell broke loose.

Liberal MPs despaired of their leader. I read of much head shaking, some cursing, and a particularly melancholy moment when one MP learning of his leader's words "actually buried his head in his hands." So sad. I wanted more: "The crumpled form was seen to heave, and sobs interweaved with sighs gave signs of woe that all was lost."

But we were spared, or cheated, of the full pathos of the moment. I expect, out of pure tact, the reporter left the "buried his head" before things went the full Oprah.

Still, why the gloom and outrage? If the GST cut was the wrong cut, if it was anathema to every first-year economics student, if it - effectively - foreclosed all sorts of repairs and reinforcements to our tattered social services, if the whole Liberal caucus agreed it was wrong - where was the inconsistency, the blunder, in suggesting it would be reversed?

Should Mr. Dion have scourged the Conservatives for cutting the GST and then assured everybody: "Oh, by the way, absolutely, we're going to keep it."

For some, it was the Dion blunder of the week. In fact, it may have been the only piece of clear logic and principled reasoning to emerge from the entire welter of partisan response to the Flaherty GST announcement.

The hardest swipe at Mr. Dion's "ineptitude" on the issue came in a quote from a "prominent Liberal." This nameless sage offered a judgment that, in our current politics, may well be the most lethal criticism of them all: "Dion understands what makes good policy. But not so much about what makes good politics."

This may be a classic illustration of what I believe the logicians call a false opposition, the spurious assertion that one idea is the negation of another. Since when is good policy the opposite of good politics? If good policy is the opposite of good politics, then the "prominent Liberal" is also telling us that bad policy is great politics.

What's really at the centre of the observation, however, goes far beyond this week's dance on the GST or Mr. Dion's leadership qualities. It is as compressed an illustration as we could wish of how far politics has become a game, an exhibition of skills empty of content.

In a real game, what do we admire? We admire "the moves" of natural dexterity, speed of reflex, psychological one-upmanship, endurance and (when they can be camouflaged) brutal whatever-can-be-gotten-away-with tactics. And what is the most honest summary of the ethos of every real game? The grim and timeless adage that puts triumph before all: Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.

Politics, we hope, is more than sports. But the relentless fascination with its skills, admiration for the mere cleverness of its best players, the oohing and aahing from the stands over one cute piece of parliamentary or campaign manoeuvre, makes it more and more difficult to maintain that hope.

The most "skilled" politician, the one most gifted with "getting away with things" or "pulling a fast one" on his opponents, is usually a hollow shell. The truly great demagogue is a monster of skill without conscience. The more blasé current variations, the "feel your pain" artists, are (shudder) motivational speakers in high office.

The Conservatives had the smart and clever week, got to deliver a budget without the normal parliamentary inconveniences, boxed Mr. Dion into another no-vote embarrassment and, I'm sure, are still grinning like Cheshire cats. They surely played the better game.

But there is something very dry about all their skill, and something very cold about Stephen Harper's increasingly sharp and hard exercise of his now much-noted tactical brilliance. Maybe throwing Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey out of the caucus, for example, or foreclosing on two other potential Conservative candidates this week was a sharp elbow too far.

Looked at as something other than a game, however, Mr. Dion's so-called stumble on the GST may be the only clear, direct, real moment of the entire charade. A flare of authentic response in an otherwise all-scripted performance.

I'd argue that this flash of the only true amateur in the top rung of Canadian politics was, despite the deep grief of his caucus on the subject, better politics than they're willing at this stage to acknowledge.