Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Budgetary Scam

Well, the Conservatives are back in power and here we go into deficit again. Coincidence, I think not. Everyone will tell us that it is not their fault and that a global situation has forced their hand. Not really. They have made so many tax cuts up to this point that they had no cushion for troubled times and they now have a structural deficit on their hands because of it. The Conservatives have always had an agenda to divert as much money as possible to big capital and have no real concern for the real system of public finance. Do the research for yourself and you will find that overall (including provincial governments) it is the NDP that has most consistently balanced budgets. This is because they, more than any other party, is truly concerned with their responsibility concerning public funds.

Anyway, all that aside, this federal budget is an unbelievable scam. This government has consistently claimed that they are putting money into things like infrastructure funding. But very little of this money actually gets spent, let alone spent appropriately. So pay little attention to the claims that this budget is putting lots of money into your municipal or provincial infrastructure. What this budget really does for the Conservatives is to give them the excuse they want to give more tax cuts, particularly to Corporations, and further hollow out the ability for the government to respond to social needs in the future. Any infrastructure spending included in this budget is temporary while the tax cuts are permanent. This means that the only way out of deficit spending will be to make cuts to social programs. But the economic downturn has provided a perfect smokescreen for the Tories to continue their gutting of the social system and further retreat from governance. Even economists, seldom friends of social spending, have said that permanent tax cuts will have very little benefit and will only serve to make it more difficult to get back to balanced budgets.

The federal budget is a scam! But the Liberals will once again establish their credentials as a gutless, hopeless, quasi-Tory, wannabe party, and they will contribute to the gradual destruction of a responsible State by voting for this budget.

So it goes.

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