Fiscally responsible conservatives

Can someone finally declare that beast mythical? (emphasis mine) 

In its first year of power, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government increased spending by 6.3 per cent and continued increasing until 2010, when it went down by 1.36 per cent. Between 2006 and 2010, government spending increased by $48-billion, according to the Public Accounts of Canada. In its first year the Conservative government had a $13.8-billion surplus, and in 2010 posted a $33.37-billion deficit. In total, revenues during the same period grew only 0.46 per cent.

In comparison, former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s government from 1994 to 2003 increased spending by 9.8 per cent while revenues grew 46.96 per cent. Mr. Chrétien inherited a $37.47-billion deficit when he took power. In 2003, the government posted a $9-billion surplus.

Under Paul Martin, the government increased spending 10.85 per cent in 2004, but decreased it by 0.49 per cent in 2005 while revenues continued to grow.

Folks – the harperites talk fiscal responsibility.  They talk jobs.  They talk getting rid of waste and large government.  But look at the reality:

  Conservative governments have a worse fical record than Liberal governments: they’ve been in deficit 11 out of the 14 years (or 79%) they’ve run the federal government and run deficits averaging 3.3% of the economy, compared to an average of 2.3% for the Liberals, with 8 out of 17 years running balanced budgets. 

Flaherty squeezes in a few Liberal notes

This is something I've never heard a Conservative Minister say:

On one hand, we have people urging us to slash spending across the board, no matter the effect it will have on services we provide to Canadians.  On the other, we have calls for billions of dollars of new spending that will impose deficits on our children and grandchildren for years to come or higher taxes that kill jobs and growth.  We reject both these extremes. We will continue with our balanced approach.

That's from Flaherty's speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce yesterday.  Them's centrist words!!!!!  Reminds me of...

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Bob Rae is emphasizing the traditional, fundamental philosophy of the Liberal party as he drives home the importance of "protecting the earning power of the middle class."

At the root of Mr. Rae’s speech is a claim – which will be hotly contested by the other parties – that the Conservatives and the NDP are guilty of populist pandering to their core constituencies.  “The trouble with the populist narrative, whether of the left or the right, is its essential dishonesty,” Mr. Rae maintains, “as if a simple bumper sticker ‘tax the rich’ or ‘tough on crime’ is really going to provide answers to the real issues we face as a country.”

As for the rest of the speech, pure harper conservative.  Jimbo's dime store crystal ball is as ineffectual  as ever, and he has to apply politic-speak to say the harper government can't keep it's promises to it's base -

Let me be clear: we will not be bound by ideology when it comes to making decisions to keep our economy strong and protect Canadians, their financial security and their jobs.

Translation: dear rabid base, my party fucked up so bear with me while I break a whole slew of ideological promises.

Heed the relentless and increasing calls from some corners to betray those principles, and watch all that they made possible vanish.

Translation: support those lefty-pinko-commie-dippers-and-libs and we're all fucked.  Because they're...bad.  And they love taxes and criminals, and they hate the troops.

While we must all recognize that the global outlook remains fragile, both the Prime Minister and I fully expect European leaders will turn these plans into action, and do what must be done to overcome an up-until-now unresolved crisis.  After all, these efforts were vital to our nation’s economic future, and built on the significant actions our Government has taken to keep our economy secure and resilient.

Translation:  It's not our fault!!!  And if things don't work out here, it's because those fence-sitting European leaders couldn't get their shit together.

We have responded to critical situations with flexibility and pragmatism, and we will continue to do so as situations dictate.

Translation:  we haven't got a clue what the future holds, so we may need to flip-flop as we have done for the past four years.

Conservatives: in it for themselves

Impolitical writes about the poor optics of giving political aides in ministerial offices  nice bonuses, pay increases to match public servants (whose wages they constantly deride), and generous severance pay if they find themselves out of work.

 

This at a time when harper is constantly going on about cutting the fat in the federal government and TBD holds meetings with Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on how to cut public servants’ pay and benefits.

Of at least equal concern is something else the article brings up:

But ministers will have a little more money to play with since the government has decreed that their offices should no longer have to foot the bill for international travel by ministers, their staff and parliamentary secretaries. Those costs will now be absorbed by government departments instead.

Harper has cut departmental budgets, plans to make more cuts to them, but is shoving that horrendous cost onto them. 

Now the Ministers can make it look like they are spending little on travel and lay the blame onto departments, claiming this was all something the department required.  We know Ministers like to hide such costs. 

   

It is naive to believe that Ministers will not abuse this new policy.  Many trips made by MPs are used for partisan reasons with only the weakest of justification linking it to their role as Minister.

So once again, as expenses are transferred to federal departments, how does harper propose to make cuts to them?

cluckcluck-cluckedycluck...

Stephen Harper repeatedly refused Sunday to provide more details about where the Conservatives would cut to achieve the $4-billion in annual savings on program spending the party has promised to find.

About that budget, steve

h/t to Far and Wide and Dammit Janet!

Enough Harper

  enough said.

"Everything is a cabinet confidence because they say it's a cabinet confidence. It's become that silly."

- Liberal MP John McKay

The Government Operations and Estimates Committee is supposed to oversee spending and provide transparency and accountability in reference to government spending - in particular estimates on future spending.

Well, it's pretty damn hard to review future spending if even basic information is witheld.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/todays-paper/Secrecy+over+federal+cuts+under+fire/3956482/story.html

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says departments can't manage the Harper government's three-year freeze on their operating budgets without cutting services to Canadians. But what those cuts are and how jobs or services will be affected remain cabinet secrets. Page, dispatched by MPs on the government operations committee in October to help them get a handle on the impact of the operating freeze, came back empty-handed. The government won't tell him details and has refused his requests for any information citing cabinet secrecy.

Page...argues the blocking of information is getting so out of hand that someone should be monitoring what's being refused to ensure they really are cabinet confidences.

The committee began its study on the freeze last April and made similar requests for basic information, such as how savings would be made, the risks of such reductions and whether they were one-time or ongoing cuts. The committee finally received a reply last week and was refused all information.

As John McKay points out, voting against the estimates could trigger an election, but with the cabinet secrecy trick, how can they know what they are supporting or voting down?

No kidding.  And how can Canadians know what they are supporting in an election as well if they aren't told what their tax dollars will be spent on, and what services, ones they have come to rely on, will cease to exist?

All Canadians need to put pressure on the opposition parties so that they don't give into this political blackmail.  If it leads to an election, fine.  Make it clear that it was brought on by the CON's denial of Canadians' right to know the basics of spending and cuts to programs and services.

The comedic stylings of harper's comedy troupe continue

Like I said.

When asked a serious question about whether Canadians will have to make some sacrifices following the next budget, Deficit Jim gave a thoughtful, serious answer that shows how much respect he has for Canadians:

"It means that not every wish gets fulfilled. I'm not Santa Claus. I'm, at best, a mere elf."
 

Oh, don't sell yourself short, Jimbo.  You are at the very least  a prestigious elf with a great deal of immunity to your own rules.

A finger pointing budget.

Tax cuts for corporations, cuts to the public services, de-regulation, all under the excuse of erasing the deficit.

What we end up with is a push to sell off more of Canada’s resources and companies by inviting more foreign investment, privatization of more public services, and fewer rules and less accountability for both investors and those taking over public services.

Harper had already made up his mind to do these things long ago.  The budget simply offered superficial justification for these moves.

He has been gunning for the public service for years, decades, actually.  He, like all reformers, believes in smaller government, and privatization of as many services as possible.  Everything is about a small group of people making as much money as possible.  And smaller government does not mean less control by the ruling party.  It means less oversight by independent agencies, fewer studies, less accountability to the public.

Harper started putting this plan into action by replacing as many independent oversight agents as possible.  Now he wants to reduce the number of those watchdogs.  This was announced before the budget, and it had nothing to do with reducing the deficit.

The federal government should consider "consolidating" the growing number of watchdogs and other oversight bodies, which can take up too much of management's time and make public servants too risk-averse, says the prime minister's hand-picked advisory committee on the public service.

Those poor public servants!  Somehow, I doubt they would agree with this assessment.  The oversight agencies and watchdogs help protect them from partisan deputy ministers (appointed by the ruling party) who are in turn pressured by Ministers.  Remove the watchdogs, and you remove impartiality and accountability.

The Speech from the Throne gives us an idea of what Harper has in mind with the removal of watch dogs:

He plans to:  untangle the daunting maze of regulations that needlessly complicates project approvals, replacing it with simpler, clearer processes that offer improved environmental protection and greater certainty to industry...Too often, however, grassroots efforts are hobbled by red tape. Too often, local solutions are denied access to government assistance because they do not fit the bureaucratic definition of the problem. Too often, the efforts of communities falter not on account of a lack of effort or heart, but because of a lack of expertise to turn good ideas into reality.

His solution? (L)ook to innovative charities and forward-thinking private-sector companies to partner on new approaches to many social challenges.

Great.  Oversight provided by those very same self-interest groups and profit oriented agencies whose self-serving pressures oversight agencies are meant to protect the public from.

Harper also plans to cut 245 senior jobs in the public service.  And who will be performing their duties?  A large part of staffing has already been transferred to deputy ministers, so it is likely that we will see much of the same political interference in other areas.

Steve plans to make 40% of cuts he says are need to reduce the deficit by making those cuts to departments and the public service in general.  That means many, many jobs will be cut, wages and benefits will be affected, and quality of service will suffer.

Here’s where the finger pointing comes in.  He has told us that the scheduled increase in June for public servants won’t be cut, but wages may be frozen after that.  So far, he hasn’t definitely said he’ll go after public servants’ pensions and benefits, but that door isn’t closed.  He has even said he won’t lay anyone off, except those senior managers.

But here’s the catch: departments will not be getting increases (except for DND and international aid) and they are furthermore expected to reduce their expenses.  While dealing with less funding, they are expected to come up with the pay increases promised by the Harper government in an agreement between unions and Treasury Board.

Harper welches on an agreement with public servants, and when departments have to lay some off to meet the funding cuts, Stevo can point his finger at the departments and blame them for the lay-offs.  He can also blame them for poor services and cuts to pensions and benefits.

Then, after forcing this evisceration of our public services, he can rant on about how much better the private sector would be at providing for the public.

Sure.  Public service now provided by private industry bent on making as much profit as possible with as little accountability as possible.