Boy, it's weird that a political party would take stand on a policy issue despite the public being less than fully on board at the moment.Shorter Tim Naumetz on the Cons' position refusing to countenance any criticism of or change to Bill C-51, a view supported by 19% of the public in the exact same poll:
[crickets]
Flooding the market with workers from elsewhere, year in and year out – even during a major recession – is not about an acute labour shortage. It is nothing more than a wage subsidy to low-paying firms, a subsidy that stunts the reallocation of goods, capital, and labour that is the basis for efficient markets.- Doctors for Fair Taxation make the case for Ontario to balance its budget through more progressive taxes rather than through massive cuts. And Andrew Jackson again debunks the Fraser Institute's anti-tax hysteria by pointing out that it's based on falsely counting corporate taxes, user fees and any other public revenue as household-level taxes - while deliberately omitting any income for anybody but individuals in order to present artificially high rates.
Not only that, but by blunting the rise in wages that market forces are calling for, the Temporary Worker Program is exacerbating the inequality of earnings in the lower half of the income distribution.
It will continue to displace Canadian workers silently if not directly, despite government assurances, for the simple reason that it artificially keeps wages low, and spoils the magic of the market.
The entire program amounts to a needless intervention that creates both inefficiency and inequity. Perhaps libertarians can see that more clearly than politicians. The whole thing should simply be scrapped.
The common-sense conservative disdain for sociology is long-standing. After delivering a swingeing 25-per-cent budget cut to Ontario universities in the 1990s, then premier Mike Harris specifically fingered “sociology” as one of the useless disciplines that the universities might consider cutting.
As a liberal intellectual, whenever I encounter this sort of hatred, I naturally ask myself, “What are the root causes?” What did sociologists ever do to them? Why isn’t “society” something that conservatives consider worthy of study?
In this case the root cause is not hard to find. It comes from an accident of intellectual history, which is that criminology developed as a subspecialty of sociology. The people who conservatives actually hate are criminologists. They hate criminologists because criminologists are pretty much unified in the conviction our common-sense ideas about crime, both with respect to its causes and its remedy, are wrong.
...
(M)ost of us have a huge bias in the way that we think about punishment, which affects our judgment in everything we do, from raising kids to managing people at work, and, of course, to thinking about crime. The only way to correct this, and to figure out what actually works, is to collect data and look at long-term trends.
This is why people who read books and study statistics are much more likely to support programs that appear to coddle criminals (what conservatives like to call “hugs for thugs” programs). It’s because social scientists actually know something important about how the world works, and in this case reality does have a liberal bias.
Hostility to expertise in all of its forms is the closest thing that Canadian conservatives have to a unifying ideology. Criminologists, however, rankle them just a little bit more than others, because their expertise happens to touch on an area that many conservatives feel strongly about. Recent changes in Canadian criminal justice have served no productive purpose, other than promoting punishment for the sake of punishment and vengeance for the sake of vengeance. This may make some people feel better, but it does nothing to prevent crime. Criminologists are the ones with the data to prove this, so it’s no wonder they’re unpopular with the government.
More than eight in 10 Canadians suggested their governments have a responsibility to do something to reduce the gap between the wealthy and the rest of Canadians.- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias checks the evidence rather than taking corporatist dogma for granted, and finds that capital gains tax levels look to have little if any effect on actual investment:
When asked whose job it is to address income disparities, a clear majority agreed strongly (52 per cent) or somewhat (30 per cent) that governments should actively find ways to shrink the gap.
Germany started charging capital-gains tax in 2009 and implemented a 25 percent rate on new investments. This seems to have changed nothing at all...- And speaking of free money for those who don't need it: yes, the Cons are still planning to funnel an extra billion dollars per year in health-care funding toward Alberta at the expense of other provinces which need it more. And there's absolutely no way the change should be allowed to happen without some serious outcry from the regions that stand to lose out.
My bottom line is that while I'm not generally a deficit hawk, cutting the capital-gains tax rate without any budget offsets, as the Bush administration did in 2003, is incredibly irresponsible. Capital-gains tax cuts are extremely regressive, so if you really are a big believer in the growth-sparking impact of lower rates, the reasonable thing to do is offset the budgetary impact of the cut with a big progressive hike in ordinary income tax rates. If you're not willing to do that, then you're really just offering rich people a giveaway. Incurring the massive direct dissavings involved in a deficit-financed tax cut in exchange for some very-possibly-not-there incentive effect is crazy.
You don't have to prove guilt when the charged plead guilty. And that is exactly what happened last week when the Conservative Party entered into an agreement in Ottawa where they would plead guilty to overspending and pay the maximum fine allowable under the Canada Elections Act if the charges were dropped against their senior members.- pogge blasts Ontario's McGuinty Libs for decreeing that any deficit reduction will be accomplished solely through service cuts rather than even the most obviously needed tax increases.
One might think that pleading guilty to attempting to circumvent the rules that manage our democracy would be done with an air of regret or remorse. When it comes to the Conservatives, however, you would be wrong. Instead, Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey issued a statement claiming the plea bargain was "a big victory'' for the party in its five-year "administrative dispute'' with Elections Canada over the legality of the in-and-out scheme. "Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today,'' DeLorey said.
I don't think anyone has ever looked a an agreement that admits guilt as ever clearing anyone of wrongdoing. The notion is ludicrous. The coordinated overspending done by funneling funds through 67 ridings just happened spontaneously? No, the Conservatives accused of wrongdoing were only spared the embarrassment of having their involvement in the scheme dissected in open court rather than being cleared of anything.
...
Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey responded that "The question of reimbursements will be dealt with in the ongoing civil proceedings." referring to the civil case the Tories brought against Elections Canada in which they dispute Elections Canada's ability to refuse to reimburse expense claims.
In other words, guilt not just without remorse, without apology, and without even having the decency to immediately repay funds improperly received from the taxpayers that they have already admitted were the result of a scheme to overspend their limits. Indeed, should they win the civil case they would compel Elections Canada to reimburse the outstanding expense claims which they have already agreed were illegal. The nerve of this position is staggering. They admit wrongdoing yet continue to seek a means of profiting from that wrongdoing, trying to have excessive refunds that were requested with fraudulent receipts taken from your tax dollars.
The administrator for a township in Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s constituency that received $455,350 for projects under the controversial $50-million G8 legacy fund says the township sent all its funding applications directly to Mr. Clement’s constituency office.Of course, the question of who exactly pared down the projects to be funded ranks awfully low on the list of glaring issues resulting from the Cons' pork-barrelling and cover-up. But it looks like just one more area where the Cons' spin has nothing at all to do with reality - and the more Clement's credibility suffers, the less believable his excuses will become.
Furthermore, it was Mr. Clement’s office that also advised the township which of the 15 to 20 projects—only three were accepted—would receive funding in the scheme, possibly contradicting the version of events Mr. Clement gave to the Commons Government Operations and Estimates Committee last June.
...
“We submitted them to Tony’s office,” Mr. Chevalier said. “There would be about 15 to 20 projects that we submitted.”
Asked whether the township council reduced the list of projects to the three that got the funding or whether Mr. Clement’s office just told the council which ones would receive funding, Mr. Chevalier replied: “It was the latter, they just told, advised us.”
...
(Clement had testified), "(s)o they said they agreed that 242 was too much and they suggested 32 or 33, which they conveyed to me, that conform to the terms and conditions that were set out by the Government of Canada. I conveyed them to the department and to the minister of infrastructure, Minister [John] Baird at the time, and that's how that process went."
Just a few months ago, two IMF economists, Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry, showed that the more equitably incomes are distributed, the longer are the spells of economic growth. They note, “Growth and inequality-reducing policies are likely to reinforce one another and help to establish the foundations for a sustainable expansion.”- Meanwhile, Marc Lee considers the option of printing more money:
Yet the IMF analysis shows the reverse is also true, that higher inequality leads to more volatility. Against a backdrop of low and falling interest rates, wealthy investors hunt for returns with higher yields, which means higher risk and more volatility. As Mark Thoma, professor of economics at University of Oregon, writes, “When we see income inequality rising, we ought to start looking for bubbles.”
All bubbles eventually burst. The boom-bust cycle wipes out even successful businesses, and increases market share for the larger players in the game who can tough it out longer or buy up the competition. This dynamic has led to the “too big to fail” phenomenon, distorting the game for everyone, leading to bailouts and higher prices.
Lack of real income growth and falling interest rates over a generation have led to more borrowing, which points to a world of trouble tomorrow. Nobody gets hurt if the incomes of the top 10% grow more slowly than the bottom 90%, but current compensation practices make that highly unlikely. If the only change on the horizon is higher interest rates, personal bankruptcies and foreclosures will go up. That could slow access to credit for everyone, and further raise the costs of borrowing for businesses and households alike.
The big barrier is psychological: once we start talking about “printing money” the danger is that millions of misunderstandings about what money is get amplified. In a fiat money system like ours it is the faith or belief that a colourful piece of paper has a certain value in purchasing goods and services that matters, and we need to be careful in shaking that confidence. That most people seek to get money (by selling their labour, or making investments, or buying low and selling high) to acquire things now or in the future is pretty obvious.- Which leads nicely into Megan Leslie's column on the need for real investment in renewable energy and conservation:
But how the money supply itself grows through the expansion of credit in the banking system is not broadly understood. The scale of private money creation is huge. Bank of Canada data for a number of monetary aggregates show that money expands rapidly during boom times, and slows down during downturns. Going back to 1996, M1+ has been at lows of about 4% annual growth, while peaking at more than 14% annual growth. M1++ peaked at around 20% annual growth through much of 2009. A broader monetary aggregate, M2++, did not grow as fast as that, but still was in the 8-9% annual growth range between late 2006 and late 2009. All of this money supply growth was compatible with low and stable inflation.
...
(F)inancing a $50 billion deficit through the Bank of Canada at a time when demand and private credit creation are slow is not a really big deal – apart from fear that would be whooped up in the media by those who do not get this or whose economic interests were adversely affected. Even a modest uptick in inflation is likely to bring hysterical cries from those who own the debts that must be repaid. And higher but stable inflation can get locked in to price and wage expectations that impose some economic costs on society, although costs will be minor for inflation rates in single digits.
...
(G)iven that there are horribly polluting industries out there that need to be phased out, why not use public money to offset the economic hit of decommissioning? At a time of deleveraging and record high household debt, a new public sector stimulus program is just what is needed, rather than the conventional wisdom that nothing more can be done by governments.
We must not forget that the development of the oil sands in Canada was the result of substantial government-sponsored research and subsidies. As part of a federal initiative, taxpayer money was invested into figuring out how to extract and refine bitumen, which has led to enormous profits for the industry. However, we have not seen a similar long-term commitment from the federal government to support the transition to clean energy, including long-term investment in energy efficiency technologies.- Finally, Anne Lagace Dowson weighs in on the media's baseless attacks on Nycole Turmel, while Tim Naumetz neatly ties the latest loyalty test to the RCMP's history of spying on Tommy Douglas which is still only in the process of coming to light.
...
Oil and gas subsidies have been touted as necessary for keeping the industry competitive through development of modern, cleaner technologies, yet a recent government study found that research subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have done little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It's time to shift the focus of the government's initiatives from big oil to renewable and conservation technologies. All Members of Parliament should commit themselves to supporting the much-needed and greatly-delayed transition to a green economy powered by renewables and energy efficiency technologies. This transition should include putting a price on carbon.
In an odd quirk, even though Mr. Clement is now Treasury Board president, who is responsible for the secretariat that prepares government spending estimates for Parliamentary approval every year, he cannot answer questions in the House of Commons about the G8 spending because he is no longer Industry minister. Mr. Clement had that position when he and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.), Transport minister and responsible for infrastructure spending, approved the riding largesse.The above is from Tim Naumetz, who from my observation generally does great work for the Hill Times.
Mr. Clement, who sits right beside Mr. Baird in the Commons, has remained silent over the past two weeks as Mr. Baird, who Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) depends on to field sensitive political questions in the Commons, has answered all of the questions about the Muskoka G8 spending.
May I once again commend Jack Layton and the New Democrats for walking away from this bit of political theatre. After the supposedly historic ruling by the Speaker in support of parliamentary supremacy, the Libs and the Bloc have joined with the Conservatives in turning the whole thing into a farce.- Abacus' latest message poll looks to provide yet more evidence that the Cons' party line is sounding less and less plausible among the general public.
“If the budget includes the same type of blind, across-the-board corporate tax cut that the Conservatives have been doing in the past, it is highly unlikely that the NDP caucus would ever be able to support such a budget,” said Mr. Mulcair.And Quote #2:
“I am one of 36 Members of Parliament in the NDP caucus, I am the finance critic but I will tell you that I would never recommend approving a budget that included the continuation of the blind, across the board tax cuts, that didn’t roll them back, and I know my caucus colleagues well enough to know that it would be highly unlikely that the NDP caucus would ever vote for such a budget,” Mr. Mulcair (said).
