Yesterday, after reviewing the Conservative budget, Michael Ignatieff posed a very perceptive question: "My concerns about the budget are have they underestimated the seriousness of the crisis? That affects all the numbers. If they make that judgment wrong, pretty well everything goes south, including their deficit projections."
The truth is, and I am sure that Ignatieff understands this, the Conservatives have underestimated the seriousness of the crisis. The stimulus, through direct government spending, that is offered in the budget, is far too puny to lift an economy with a GDP of $1.5 trillion a year. Instead of about $6 billion a year in direct spending, Canada needs roughly $50 billion a year this year and again next year.
That’s the hard fact about this budget. It’s what the Liberal leader needs to focus on when he addresses the nation this morning at 11.00 a.m. EST.
Especially in the cloistered environs of Ottawa, it is very difficult for political leaders to remember what is happening to Canadians and their communities during this economic crisis. Surrounded by the jaded, cynical figures of the media in the capital, who have become as frozen as the gargoyles on the Centre Block, a politician can be forgiven for losing track of reality.
In the short-term, enormous pressures are being brought to bear on Ignatieff to support the Harper government budget, perhaps with some amendments. The problem is that as hundreds of thousands of Canadians lose their jobs in coming months and as communities lose their major employers, reality is going to come home to Canadian political leaders. The economic crisis is real, even though the Ottawa media are treating it as though it is a parlor game about which political leader is more strategically gifted than his foes.
If Michael Ignatieff keeps his eye on the country and the actual problems of Canadians, he can get this one right. We’ll see later this morning.
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Wallpaper Budget.
For the week leading up to Flaherty’s Budget the Harper government has been ‘officially’ leaking on a daily basis one major drop at a time of what’s generally in store for us in the CEAP (“Canada’s Economic Action Plan”) 2009 Budget. Whether this is legal or not is debatable, something that Harper always does and does very well as there isn’t enough time these days for people to speak let alone think and to hold peoples’ attention long enough to realize that this buys him more than enough time to hold on to power. He is the master at inflicting ADD syndrome on a national level.
Once again he strives to impress us of being a strong leader in times of crisis; a bold undertaking of historic proportions as Flaherty says in the final sentence, I invite and urge the honourable members to support it, for the good of the country. “
But the general consensus of the punditry was that this was far more a political budget than an economic budget that is what truly is needed and that it is one that gives (depending on the fine print) a little bit of something to pretty much everyone. This is a wallpaper budget only covering the cracks at our peril and precious little that other First World countries are doing with respect to their stimulus programs as a percentage of their GDP and some of them are very bold with Obama showing the greatest leadership.
In this case the Emperor has almost no clothes but only the traditional boots that they bought on Monday the 26th.
But what does Harper care as he succeeded in painting the whole country into a corner again? If Ignatieff votes against the budget Harper has the war chest to fight another election and will paint Iggy out to be irresponsible and not keeping in the spirit of Flaherty’s closing budget line, “for the good of the country “. I think that the GG can be convinced again. So unless Iggy can convince Harper of some big amendments he will have to share the boot with Harper but beware the cracks.
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