Musical interlude

The Stills - Being Here

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robert Reich reminds us that sustainable economic growth is the product of bottom-up development, not a top-down trickle of wealth:

What’s the real formula for growth? Better access to education, healthcare, and transportation, all of which make workers more productive.

These more productive workers command higher wages. With higher wages, they purchase more goods and services. These purchases motivate companies to expand and invest, and create more and better jobs.

American experienced this virtuous cycle for thirty years after World War II. We invested unprecedented sums in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. We financed these investments through higher taxes on the rich and on big corporations.

The economy boomed and wages shot upward. The wages of the bottom fifth rose even faster than the wages of the top fifth. This unleashed consumer spending, which generated more growth.

The Clinton administration tried this formula on a much smaller scale in the 1990s, raising taxes on the top and investing in education and infrastructure. The economy boomed, 23 million new jobs were created, and for the first time since the late 1970s the typical American’s wage rose.
...
For years, Republicans have been selling tax cuts by lying that they spur growth, which trickles down to average Americans.

For just as long, Democrats have been selling fairness, but without explaining why a fairer economy is also more productive and prosperous.

It’s time for Democrats to make the case. It has the virtue of being true.

- Meanwhile, Simon Wren-Lewis comments on the importance of investing in our social and economic future, then reminds us why we shouldn't obsess over modest government deficits when human well-being is at stake.

- Norman Farrell reviews how the B.C. Libs and their corporate donors looted what had been a well-run and efficient BC Hydro.

- Finally, Juliette Garside discusses the EU's moves toward naming and blacklisting tax havens.

New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's sad excuse for a climate change strategy (PDF) is really aimed at nothing more than excusing continued carbon pollution.

For further reading...
- I wrote just a couple of weeks ago about the Saskatchewan public's strong appetite for real action against climate change - making it all the more embarrassing to be stuck with a government which can't be bothered. And I've also written before about the problems with "intensity" emission targets - which are the only type to be found anywhere in the Sask Party's plan. 
- Andrew Leach charts the current emissions of Canadian provinces and industries. 
- Erin Flanagan offers the Pembina Institute's response.
- Murray Mandryk also sees the strategy as nothing but a sop to the oil industry. And Carl Meyer reports on the oil sector's deliberate refusal to cooperate with the global fight against climate change.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Rick Salutin writes that Ontario's provincial election shows that nobody is prepared to defend neoliberal ideas on their merits - which should provide an opening to start challenging them in practice. And Alice Ollstein examines how Donald Trump's corporate giveaway looks like an unmitigated economic disaster in the making.

- Phillip Inman notes that financial markets are in a similar position to where they were before the 2008 meltdown. And Robert Booth notes that the less-privileged in the UK are already facing as much homelessness and housing insecurity as they did during the most recent crash.

- Meanwhile, Jordan Press reports on a much-needed effort to ensure that lower-income Canadians receive the benefits available to them.

- Kristen Sze reports on California's dramatically-increased wildfire risks arising out of climate change, while Sarah Boseley notes that pollution is undermining the health value of outdoor exercise for people over 60. And Andrea Harden Donohue warns against accepting the premise that we're stuck with pipelines and/or coal.

- Finally, Anne Karpf points out how the most privileged people have managed to silence the real victims of entrenched power structures by feigning victimhood for themselves.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats at home.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz writes about the need to learn from past mistakes in order to build a sustainable economy for the future:

To someone like me, who has watched trade negotiations closely for more than a quarter-century, it is clear that US trade negotiators got most of what they wanted. The problem was with what they wanted. Their agenda was set, behind closed doors, by corporations. It was an agenda written by, and for, large multinational companies, at the expense of workers and ordinary citizens everywhere.

Indeed, it often seems that workers, who have seen their wages fall and jobs disappear, are just collateral damage – innocent but unavoidable victims in the inexorable march of economic progress. But there is another interpretation of what has happened: one of the objectives of globalisation was to weaken workers’ bargaining power. What corporations wanted was cheaper labour, however they could get it.

This interpretation helps explain some puzzling aspects of trade agreements. Why is it, for example, that advanced countries gave away one of their biggest advantages, the rule of law? Indeed, provisions embedded in most recent trade agreements give foreign investors more rights than are provided to investors in the US. They are compensated, for example, should the government adopt a regulation that hurts their bottom line, no matter how desirable the regulation or how great the harm caused by the corporation in its absence.
...
American capitalism in recent years has been marked by unbridled greed – the 2008 financial crisis provides ample confirmation of that. But, as some countries have shown, a market economy can take forms that temper the excesses of both capitalism and globalisation, and deliver more sustainable growth and higher standards of living for most citizens.

We can learn from such successes what to do, just as we can learn from past mistakes what not to do. As has become evident, if we do not manage globalisation so that it benefits all, the backlash – from the New Discontents in the north and the Old Discontents in the south – is at risk of intensifying.

- Meanwhile, Martin Wolf comments on the Republican tax plan which is built to benefit nobody besides plutocrats. And Michelle Goldberg notes that there's every reason for millenials to hate a capitalist system which is creating nothing but obstacles to basic security and personal progress.

- Heidi Shierholz discusses the Trump administration's latest move to reward the worst of the worst exploiters, this time by allowing employers to pocket employees' tips.

- Brian Doucet and David Hulchanski both write that the Libs' much-ballyhooed "housing strategy" falls far short of earning that title.

- Finally, Mike Crawley reports on the massive amounts of consumer money going to Ontario's private power generators for inappropriate expenses. And Don Pittis discusses how Canada's electrical system is already far over the amount of generating capacity it needs - with the public purse bearing the cost of old and inefficient generation through corporate-friendly fixed contracts.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Murray Dobbin writes that corporate power is the greatest threat to our health and well-being - and reminds us that government focused on the public interest is a necessary counterweight:

The revelations of the Paradise Papers, the earlier Panama Papers and numerous articles in the western mainstream and alternative media demonstrate just one dimension, tax evasion, of an increasingly obvious truth: global corporations have become the greatest threat to the planet. The deliberate starvation of government, climate change, grotesque inequality, Dickensian working conditions, environmental degradation, dwindling biodiversity, the slow (or not so slow) death of the oceans and the creation of the security state on corporations' behalf threaten not only the natural world but our capacity to democratically govern ourselves while maintaining some semblance of civilization.

The advent of the corporate state was truly unleashed when Canada and the U.S. introduced the first "free trade" agreement in 1989. In the 28 years since, hundreds of such agreements have been signed, all of them designed to erase borders for corporations and radically reduce the operational space for democratic governance.

Governments are the only institutions that can seriously challenge the power and reach of transnational corporations: they made them and they could unmake them. Only governments can curb their predatory nature, constrain their contempt for their workers, communities and the environment, and genuinely punish them when they openly break the law as part of their fiduciary "duty" to their shareholders.

- Kate Letterick reports on new research showing how people with disabilities disproportionately face deep poverty. And Laurie Monsebraaten and Sandro Contenta investigate how the child protection system provides minimal resources and supports for workers trying to meet desperate needs.

- Nick Falvo offers a look at the Libs' national housing strategy - though even his fairly generous take recognizes the large gap between rhetoric and action.

- Jacques Marcoux and Kristen Annable report on the lack of meaningful consequences for employers responsible for workers' deaths across Canada. And Adam Hunter points out that Saskatchewan's system of penalties for workplace fatalities stands out as being particularly weak.

- Finally, Matthew Yglesias discusses new research showing how inequality of opportunity leads to less innovation and progress for everybody.

Leadership 2018 Links

The latest from the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership campaign.

- Greg Nikkel reported on the Weyburn debate, but didn't note much by way of contrast in so doing.

- And local media also covered Ryan Meili's visits to Prince Albert and North Battleford, and Trent Wotherspoon's to Weyburn and the Battlefords.

- Alex MacPherson and D.C. Fraser's latest notebook discusses the impact of the Saskatchewan Party's retrograde candidates on abortion - though it's worth noting that contrary to their reporting, Meili and Wotherspoon both committed to improved access to reproductive services in response. 

- Finally, the Leader-Post and Star-Phoenix teamed up to write about the importance of widespread participation in Saskatchewan's leadership campaigns. And Jason Hammond rightly noted that we'd be better served with greater public engagement at all times.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Matt Bruenig proposes a social wealth fund as a fix for the U.S.' burgeoning inequality and income insecurity:

We seem stuck in the same policy equilibrium we have been in for decades, with conservatives denying that there is a problem and pushing policies that would make it even worse, liberals emphasizing the need for education and skills development, and leftists pushing for a unionized labor market and social-democratic welfare state.

Some of these ideas are good ones, which would make life better for vulnerable people. But they’d do little to directly target inequality in our society or to capture all the benefits that economic fairness brings.

The solution is simpler than it seems. There’s a tried and tested way, within the system we have now, of giving everyone a share in the investment returns now hoarded by the wealthy. It’s called a social wealth fund, a pool of investment assets in some ways like the giant index or mutual funds already popular with retirement savings accounts or pension funds, but one owned collectively by society as a whole. One that paid dividends not to the few, or even just to the shrinking middle class lucky enough to have their savings invested, but to everyone.

...

Creating a social wealth fund in which we all own an equal part is certainly not the only way to tackle wealth inequality directly, but it is one of the few ways that we know works well and is able to work within the system we now have. If policymakers want to get serious about trimming wealth concentration, and not just use these shocking statistics to promote the same old half-measures, then this would be a fair, effective and practical way to start.

- Meanwhile, Ed Pilkington reports on a UN mission addressing poverty in the U.S. And Danny Dorling and Stuart Gietel-Basten examine how the UK's increasing inequality and needless austerity is cutting into life expectancies.

- Pamela Duncan and Patrick Butler discuss the connection between lower-income areas and fast-food consumption. And Fatima Syed reports on rallies seeking to ensure that poverty isn't a barrier to access to financial services in Canada.

- The Star examines how Canadian governments are subsidizing environmental destruction by providing subsidies which far exceed the penalties corporations have paid for environmental violations. And Bill McKibben argues that a gradual shift toward dealing with ongoing carbon pollution (after decades of industry-funded delay) will prove to be a loss in the long run.

- Finally, Chris Parsons writes that we have every reason to be outraged about offshore tax avoidance - and particularly the policy choices which have allowed it to occur.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Toby Sanger discusses how the Trudeau Libs' obsession with privatized infrastructure only stands to put control over public services in the hands of corporate predators:

Corporations are sitting on hundreds of billions of excess cash in Canada and trillions worldwide — money they aren’t putting into productive investments. So corporations and other investors (including pension funds) desperately want to achieve higher returns. But economic growth is slow (because wage increases are so low and profits so high), which leads to fewer private-sector investment opportunities. So corporations are now turning to the cannibalization of public-sector assets and infrastructure through public-private partnerships or other forms of privatization, including the new infrastructure bank.

The great attraction of these public infrastructure investments for private finance is that high returns are effectively guaranteed for decades through ongoing government payments, and/or through tolls and other user fees. Most forms of public infrastructure involve some form of natural monopoly. This allows private owners to exploit them for monopoly profits — which is why they were established as public assets in the first place!

In another sordid twist, the briefing notes and presentation about the bank that were prepared for delivery by Trudeau and his ministers at a session for foreign investors were developed in conjunction with Blackrock officials, as Globe and Mail reporter Bill Curry revealed, using documents obtained through access to information. In effect, the Liberal government turned over the design and development of this bank to the very people who will profit most from it: the largest private sector and pension investment funds in the world.
...
Numerous critics have outlined major problems with the proposed bank

• it will lead to massive privatization of public infrastructure;
• projects will cost much more, so Canadians will get less bang for their buck;
• projects will require significant increases in user fees, which will restrict access, and punish middle and lower-income earners;
• there will be little transparency and public accountability required of the bank and its projects or for its use of public funds. Information will be kept secret and will not be subject to the more stringent transparency and accountability rules that govern public projects, while those who disclose information could be subject to fines and jail time;
• the bank is restricted from having any representation on the board from the federal or any other governments, which means the bank will be controlled by private-sector interests, even though the legislation claims it will act in the public interest.

...
It is important to resist each privatization proposal and expose each project for who it will benefit and who it will hurt, but ultimately the pressure to privatize and cannibalize the public sector won’t abate until we achieve a more profound shift of power from concentrated private capital to a much more equitable economic order.

- Meanwhile, Rick Smith highlights the importance of modernizing our social programs to fit an economy in which workers are treated as disposable. And PressProgress examines how some of the same businesses extracting more profits than they know what to do with are simultaneously underfunding the pensions they've promised their workers.

- Miriam Katawazi reports on the persistent and widespread gender pay gap in Canada. And while the Star's editorial board hopes that transparency will make a difference, it's well worth noting that mere awareness of the gap has done little to reduce it in the absence of meaningful policy steps.

- Paul Krugman writes about the fundamental dishonesty behind the Republicans' looting of the U.S.' 99%. But on the bright side, Dogwood notes that British Columbia's NDP/Green majority has ended the type of disproportionate donor influence which has polluted American politics.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey comments on the reactionary right's false assumption that media outlets (and people in general) are as uninformed as its audience.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Musical interlude

Big Wreck - One Good Piece of Me

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Matt Bruenig examines the multi-million-dollar increase in the household wealth of the U.S.' top 1% over the past decade. And Ian Welsh discusses how the extreme concentration of wealth bleeds into political choices:

The corruption of vast inequality is that it makes some people powerful enough to overthrow democracy: in general (Citizen’s United) and in particular cases.

Most rich people are not good people. It is well established now, in the academic literature, that rich people have an empathy deficit, that they give less as a percentage of their wealth and income, and that (to put it unscientifically) they tend to become assholes. They don’t need to care what other people think, or about their welfare.

But even when they do try to do good, well, they don’t need to go through normal democratic processes: they just buy the results.
...
Money is power. When the government relies on rich individuals and corporations to do what should be done by government it takes longer and produces less welfare than it should, and it leads to capture by the rich of government.

A 90%+ top marginal tax rate and punitive capital and estate taxes aren’t necessary because “government needs the money”, they are necessary so that the rich don’t become so rich they buy the State.

And that includes the ones who try to do some good...

- Richard Partington writes about new OECD research on the threats to the UK's economy posed by household debt and stagnant wages. And Linda Nazareth discusses how retirement security is declining between generations in Canada.

- Makda Ghebreslassie points out that food banks and other band-aid solutions do nothing to address underlying insecurity and social deprivation.

- Andre Picard wonders whether Canada has forgotten the hard-learned lessons of the tainted blood scandal - particularly as to the dangers of cost-cutting and profit motives when health is at stake.

- Finally, amidst so many real problems in our midst, Michael Coren comments on the right's attempt to fabricate a campus free speech crisis which ultimately means little more than trying to ensure that only reactionary voices get heard.

New column day

Here, on how the spin behind the Trump administration's push for a massive tax giveaway to the rich has no basis in economic reality - and how Canada shouldn't be suckered into following suit.

For further reading...
- Michael Linden examines the overall effects of the Senate's version of tax reform legislation, with income levels under $50,000 in income all coming out with net losses (which are worse the lower a household's income). Lawrence Summers challenges the attempts to fabricate a case for regressive tax slashing. And Steven Greenhouse discusses how the Trump tax plan will exacerbate the worst problems the U.S. already faces.
- Jim Tankersley points out the unwillingness of businesses to take up an invitation to convert lower taxes into higher wages. And Tolure Olorunnipa notes that some CEOs are already acknowledging that they'll use any windfalls for share buybacks rather than productive activity.
- Paul Krugman has reviewed both the leprechaun economics that result in much of a tax cut being delivered offshore, and the Schroedinger's tax hike in which Republicans claim they'll avoid increasing the deficit by letting some tax cuts expire, yet somehow simultaneously extend those tax cuts.
- Cristobal Young discusses the fact that high-wealth individuals are relatively unlikely to move generally, and particularly aren't sensitive to progressive tax rates.
- And for the type of commentary aimed at forcing Canada to follow the U.S.' self-destructive lead by handing free money to the corporate sector, one need never look any further than Jack Mintz. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Matt Bruenig writes about the U.S.' alarming growth in student debt - which combined with diminished career prospects is leading to dim future outlooks for far too many young workers. And Eric Grenier's look at the latest release of data from Canada's 2016 census shows a stark drop in the number of working-age people with full-time employment - which looks to have dropped below the number of people with post-secondary education in the same age group.

- Sarah Halibagherji discusses the Social Mobility Commission's latest report on the UK's postcode lottery which sees radically different opportunities available based the geography of a child's home. And Dean Beeby reports on the failure of Canada's Working Income Tax Benefit to reach many families which need it. 

- George Monbiot writes that dirty air is one of the major threats to children's health - yet isn't being addressed even through such simple steps as limiting exhaust fumes around schools. And Alexander Kaufman reports on a new study showing that corporations don't tend to live up to their promises of environmental responsibility.

- Andre Picard highlights the sad reality that infectious diseases in particularly vulnerable populations are all too often treated as a norm to be accepted, rather than a preventable problem whose resolution would benefit everybody.

- Finally, Nick Falvo offers some important considerations for Alberta's next provincial budget (which largely apply equally to any other exercise in managing public resources).

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Doug Henwood interviews Brooke Harrington about the role of offshoring in hiding and concentrating wealth:

(W)hat does it say about the state of capitalism that these immense fortunes are sequestered; not so much engaged with expansion of the system but are being kept from the prying eyes of government or relatives?

People who claim to love capitalism and care about capitalism thriving should be very worried about this, because what this concentration of capital in an increasingly small group of people’s hands means is that the economic system is ossifying. It’s going backwards towards feudalism, where wealth was tied up generation after generation among a very small group of families. That’s exactly what we see happening now.

You may have seen that every year, Oxfam produces a study in which they count the number of people whose wealth exceeds that of the poorest 50 percent of humanity. In 2010, that number was above three hundred. In 2017, as of January, it was eight. The number of people who could fit into an extra-large golf cart now own wealth equivalent to the bottom 50 percent of humanity. That’s neo-feudalism, and we’re already seeing the consequences in the extreme decline of upward mobility in the US.

Now when you get an inheritance in the US, that doesn’t just benefit children or grandchildren of the original rich people. It has a knock on effect to the fifth or sixth generation. Meanwhile, most Americans, especially African Americans, have nothing; nothing but debt when they die. Whereas a very tiny group of people at the very top of the socioeconomic scale have billions to distribute to their heirs when they die. We’ve essentially re-feudalized ourselves.

- Meanwhile, Max de Haldevang points out how hidden wealth makes it difficult to trust publicly-available data about our economy.

- John Bargh writes about the connection between personal security and political orientation - with people living in fear representing easy targets for conservative themes.

- But Luke Savage notes that we can't afford to let complacency about existing institutions form the basis for left-wing politics. And Danny Westneat comments on the corporatization of political decision-making - epitomized by the appalling offers being made to Amazon to house its new headquarters - as an imminent threat to popular governance.

- Finally, Joe Romm reports on a new study showing that renewable energy is not only more affordable to build new than dirtier power sources, but becoming cheaper than continuing to operate existing coal and nuclear facilities.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cowering cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Tom Parkin writes that the Trudeau Libs and Bill Morneau have taken the side of wealthy shareholders over workers who want only the secure retirement they've already paid for through deferred wages:

Morneau should be requiring companies to tell Canadians’ pension regulator about their dividend plans. He should be setting processes and rules that get healthy companies to fully fund pensions — before there’s another Sears-type pension fiasco.

Instead, Morneau is sponsoring Bill C-27. True, it does help eliminate pension liabilities — but not by funding them. Morneau’s bill would help employers permanently shift potential liabilities onto workers by replacing defined benefit plans with “target” plans.

On pensions, tax havens and private infrastructure finance, Bill Moreau has shown he’s a rich guy’s rich guy. That’s what he was as leader of a C.D. Howe Institute, which is little more than a CEO lobby group. That’s what he is as Finance Minister. He can’t be gone soon enough.

- And Alan Freeman echoes the view that Morneau can't be kept in a position which he's used mostly to enrich his own class of vulture capitalists.

- Meanwhile, Chris Varcoe reports on the Notley government's push to make sure that federal bankruptcy law doesn't leave the public on the hook for the costs of remediating abandoned oil wells.

- Alex Hemingway discusses the role tax fairness can play in reducing inequality - and how to make that work in British Columbia's next budget. And Dean Beeby reports on the Canada Revenue Agency's first steps toward cracking down on tax avoidance in the country's wealthiest neighbourhoods.

- Finally, Ed Finn writes that citizen happiness correlates far more strongly with genuinely democratic and responsive government than with raw GDP.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ed Broadbent discusses how Bernie Sanders offers an example to emulate - and in some cases a source of ideas well beyond what Canada has implemented so far:

It was clear to everyone watching that Canadians, in fact,  have a few things to learn from Bernie Sanders. His speech was significant for two reasons.

First, he is an unapologetic social democrat who has inspired a whole new generation of voters with those values in a country where hyper-capitalism is king. The enthusiasm he has generated has carried over to young people here in Canada and around the world.

Second, Bernie urged us to keep on fighting, to maintain and improve our healthcare system. He knows Canadian healthcare is under constant threat not just from right-wing forces, but also from complacency. He told the audience to “speak loudly” about the virtues of universal healthcare, because our public system not only needs to be protected, but urgently needs to be expanded.  

...

Social democracy transformed politics in the post-World War II era. We provided a political framework based on the belief that markets should be regulated and put in the service of social aims, and that high levels of social and economic rights like pensions, healthcare, and employment insurance should be available to all. These policies and programs lifted tens of millions in Europe and North America out of poverty.

It was our generation of social democrats, and that of our parents, that fought for such government investments in the common good, the protection not only of political and civil rights, but also of social, and economic rights – these were the original Game Changers. Thanks to successful struggles here in Canada, crucial social programs are now at the heart of our identity - Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and accessible post-secondary education. All of these had their origin in the egalitarian philosophy of social democracy.

...

As a lifelong social democrat, I am deeply troubled by rising inequality and the emergence of far-right political extremism today. I came of age believing that such things were relics of the past. Sadly, we are witnessing their growth once again.  As in the 1920s, economic insecurity and severe income inequality are sowing the seeds of division and resentment.

It’s our responsibility to stand up to the right-wing politicians. We must show Canadians that we can solve our social and economic problems, not by the politics of division and exclusion, but by banding together and taking on directly the cause of our political and economic inequalities. 

- Nils Pratley comments on a shift toward the nationalization of services after people experience the inferior quality and higher cost of privatization, with a particular focus on the offshoring and environmental damage by Thames Water.

- Lana Payne highlights the fact that governments could build far more at a lower cost by financing projects directly rather than looking for excuses to enrich third parties. And Keith Schneider points out the failure of the megaproject model for infrastructure.

- Trevor Hancock writes that urban sprawl is an important public health issue, but one which is a long way from being meaningfully addressed.

- Finally, Andrew Nikiforuk examines British Columbia's massive methane emissions - and how they were covered up by the responsible regulator under the Clark Libs. And Sarah Cox notes that the province lacks many kinds of environmental data to make informed decisions about the risks to its water supplies.

Uberrific!

Cover-ups!
Scandals!
Sexual harassment!
Tax evasion!
Employment standards violations!
Deliberate dishonesty!
And all in the service of a business model built on becoming too big to ban while operating as a regulatory-evasion company!

Yep, that sounds like the Saskatchewan Party's kind of business.

Which means the only question left is: how much public money will get handed out to allow Brad Wall (or his successor) a photo op?

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- David Climenhaga comments on the tendency of even progressive governments to unduly accept neoliberal frames and theories - with Rachel Notley's talk of "compassionate belt tightening" sadly serving as the latest example:

Premier Notley told reporters that her government spent money on infrastructure and services during the recession caused by the international collapse in oil prices, but now that the economy seems to be perking up at last, it's time to alter course.

This seems to make sense in a classic John Maynard Keynes, Economics 101, sort of way -- you know, spend in bad times, save in good. A couple of things are wrong with this explanation, however:

First, it's too soon. The recession isn't over. Spending is still needed to keep the economy off life support.

Second, and more important in the Alberta context, taxes here are artificially kept at nonsensically low levels -- too low to run a modern economy in a jurisdiction of this size and complexity -- because we refuse to tax individuals and corporations at a level that makes sense.

Everybody understands this. Certainly Notley does, as does her caucus. NDP supporters do too.
...
If ever there was a discredited economic doctrine, it's the harsh austerity, privatization, deregulation, government spending cuts, and lowest-common-denominator trade policies of the neoliberal counter-revolution that has sought to destroy the post-World War II welfare state, which resulted in the highest levels of prosperity in human history, and turn the clock back to the 19th Century.

And yet here we go again -- led by an NDP government no less -- down the rabbit hole of neoliberal prescriptions, which never work, always make things worse, and sow chaos and destruction for ordinary people while undermining democracy by making the uber-wealthy richer and more powerful.

It's a tribute to the success of the international neoliberal propaganda machine, I suppose, that doing the sensible thing and implementing modest increases to Alberta's taxes is simply not on, even for a well-intentioned social democratic government.
...
Alas, the modest common-sense tax increases Alberta needed from the NDP never came. Instead, the best we can hope for now is compassionate austerity, which when it doesn't work, risks becoming the conservative entrée to something harsher, and even less effective.

- And the Equality Trust offers its response to yet another UK budget which inflicts austerity rather than ameliorating inequality.

- Noah Smith writes about the crucial role of social redistribution in ensuring the prosperity is shared beyond the luckiest few. And Judy Paul writes that a basic income could go much further in allowing people to make positive life choices like finishing high school as adults, rather than being trapped by the need to scratch out subsistence-level incomes.

- Finally, Steven Greenhouse discusses the need for better scheduling protections for U.S. workers - and the developing movement to fight for them.