Compare and contrast

There's still plenty of ground to be covered in examining the Cons' responsibility for bribing Ontario and B.C. to raise taxes on their citizens. And one of the more interesting areas for further discussion comes in comparing the process followed for the HST payoff with the one applied to the Cons' much-ballyhooed infrastructure spending.

In the case of infrastructure, the Cons made a pool of money available with a stated intended purpose. But rather than actually proposing any projects, the Cons have left it to municipalities and provinces to apply with their own "ideas" for spending - pausing at most to filter out some spending for partisan gain, then passing money along based on proposals from the provincial or municipal level.

And the predictable result? Con actors from Stephen Harper down to to rank-and-file MPs have spent the entire summer running to the nearest camera to claim full responsibility for every announcement they can fit into their schedules.

In the case of the HST, the Cons actually spent more time and effort trying to convince the provinces to go along with a scheme which actually originated at the federal level. But the rough process has been the same: money was set aside for a specified purpose, and the Cons have responded to provincial interest by signing on to pay out money as they initially proposed.

But the Cons claim they bear no responsibility that since the provinces made a decision to go along with their payoff.

So let's assume that there's some validity to the Cons' effort to flee any responsibility for the HST. By the same standard, hasn't every single infrastructure project initiated this year been the result of a proposal and decision from one or more other levels of government? And applying the same standard which they're trying to apply to the HST, shouldn't the Cons be scrupulously avoiding any credit for infrastructure spending which doesn't come from their own ideas?