Blue Like You

Archive for September 29th, 2008

This could get ugly - Bailout bill defeated; Dow Jones falls 777 points. (H/T National Newswatch)

Jonathan Chevreau suggests going out for a brisk walk to help shake off the anxiety. That might be the very best thing you could do right now.

It will be interesting to see how Canadian politicians spin this one.

Let me guess… Iggy will say this is all Harper’s fault.

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Update: Can anyone please tell me why TD’s Don Drummond continues to support a carbon tax?  At least one Ontario Liberal has his head on straight.

More from the Wudrick Blog.

Civitatensis - Paul Martin to the Rescue.

I’ve always said that any changes to Canada’s current lack of abortion law will have to come from ordinary citizens pressuring the left. Otherwise, we will never have any restrictions on publicly-funded abortion in Canada - Harper says no to abortion debate (Globe).

So email NDP and Liberal MPs if you are upset about this.

Since it seems that the race to watch this election is the battle between Stephane Dion and Jack Layton for the keys to Stornoway, it is imperative that we focus on the NDP leader’s credibility this time, whereas in previous elections we would have regarded him as an amusing sideshow (something like Lizzy May this go-round, in spite of having wiggled her way into the leadership debates.)

Both Greg Weston and John Ivison seem impressed with Jack Layton’s show of fiscal prudence, in that he intends to balance the budget and not go into deficit.

All very laudable, but the plan breaks down when you look at where he is planning to get the money from, in order to fund all his social programs for the folks at the ‘kitchen table’ - He plans to raid the ‘boardroom’ tables. Ivison explains:

…Jack proposes to pay for his "balanced and responsible" $52-billion, four-year plan by cancelling the corporate tax cuts already earmarked by the Conservative government.

"We’ve seen on Wall Street this week what happens when the rich and powerful are allowed to do whatever they want with other people’s money. Can we afford to let Stephen Harper take us down the George Bush road?" he asked, to roars of appreciation.

Jack understands that many Canadians find something honest about ignorance. He regards the financial sector with much the same distaste as the pest exterminator in the Capital One television advertisement — "You’ve got bankers" –as if they were the cause of Canada’s economic woes, rather than the solution. The choice, he says, is simple: You can fund multi-billion-dollar giveaways to the gougers on Bay Street and in the oil patch, or put money in the hands of hard-working Canadian families. This glosses over the economic reality that those same companies have been an economic lifeline to Canada at a time when the rest of the world has been buffeted by recession.

What is most worrying is that this intellectual incoherence does not appear to be just political theatre.

There is near unanimity these days among economists and politicians that corporate tax cuts improve productivity, attract foreign investment and increase the national wealth. A recent OECD study suggested that a decrease in corporate income tax has a stronger positive effect on GDP per capita than a similar decrease in personal income tax. Gary Doer, the NDP Premier of Manitoba, seems to believe that keeping corporate tax rates competitive is a sound investment — his province’s corporate rates are set to move to 12% from 14% by 2012, making them one of the lowest in the country.

Yet, the lone dissenter from this view is Jack Layton. When asked about the effect of raising corporate taxes back to their 2007 level of 22.12% (the Tories have promised to reduce corporate income tax to 19.5% this year and to 15% by 2012), the NDP leader said he did not believe "in a race to the bottom…"

As John Ivison goes on to explain, Layton cites the single example of the John Deere plant closing as proof that corporate tax cuts don’t work.

So the weakest part of Layton’s economic plan hinges on his failure to answer the following question: Where will the money come from to pay for all those goodies after Canadian businesses close down and take those fine jobs with them?

If Jack Layton truly aspires to be the leader of the Official Opposition, he must come clean on this apparent flaw in his platform  - before it becomes a gaping hole in his credibility.

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Update: And since the vultures are already circling around the head of Stephane Dion (don’t drop any poo!) , here’s a column by Lorne Gunter on one of his possible replacements - Iggy Think 101: An introduction to the great man’s logic (or lack of it).

Afternoon Update -  Jonathan Kay: Just came out of an editorial meeting with Jack Layton:

…Impressive guy. Too bad about the whole socialism thing.

Tuesday Update: Lorrie Goldstein -Jack Layton and the real world:

…Layton says he’d raise $50 billion by cancelling corporate tax cuts promised by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives and redistribute it to working families, led by a tax-free baby bonus of up to $5,000 annually, per child.

He’d also charge corporations billions of dollars for emitting carbon dioxide in order to fight global warming and use that money to pay for such things as making homes more energy efficient.

There’s only one problem with all this — reality.

In the real world, if you increase the costs of doing business, businesses pass along those costs to consumers. If you make businesses uncompetitive by raising taxes too much, they’ll lay off employees, move offshore, or go bankrupt …

Exactly.