Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has unveiled its alternative federal budget - which highlights the choice between the Cons' needless austerity, and the 200,000-300,000 extra jobs which could be created alongside important social improvements which could be brought about through well-placed public action.

- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin worries that the use of interest rates alone as an economic growth strategy is feeding an unsustainable housing bubble - offering anpther indication as to why we should work on expanding socially productive activities rather than hoping that unfettered (and indeed exacerbated) market forces will somehow serve the greater good.

- Vincent Gogolek points out that the Cons are going out of their way to make it more difficult for Canadians to find accurate information about their government online.

- Craig McInnes expands on the B.C. Libs' attempt to erase any remaining line between governing and campaigning:

Citizens have a right to expect that governments separate activities that are rightfully supported by political parties and govern in the name of all the people. The Liberals acknowledge that line was crossed in the ethnic outreach memo.

But they don’t see any problem with using tax dollars to promote the interests of the government at a time when they are insisting that the Opposition has a duty to behave as though we are in an election.
...
As a journalist who often feeds off dysfunction, I’m happy to see a government that already has its full attention on election day. As a citizen and taxpayer, I think if the government wants to hear from the Opposition, it should shut down the legislature, stop using tax dollars to pay for ads and get on with a real campaign, funded by Liberals.

- Finally, Rob Bluey comments on the importance of effective data collection and analysis in Barack Obama's successful re-election campaign - and the lesson is one which Canadian progressives would do well to keep in mind.