CDN/US Covid-related political discussion

[FJAG]

Why do you all believe this government is going to do any spending cuts after this? There has been no real incentive for the government to manage our debt for decades now (it wasn't even a key point in the last election campaigns), why would that change? The reality is most people are so far in debt in their personal life they don't care about the government being in debt. As I have listened to these sad people, there logic is that cutting back is just a 'loss of services' and shouldn't happen. Democracy is only as good as the citizens within it, and ours are raised with a silver spoon in their mouth, not understanding how much that debt actually hurts them (such as the fact over the last 20 years the amount of money we have paid in interest could have paid off our debt in full). Its crazy to think if we didn't have debt that first year in power for JT wouldn't have had a 35 billion dollar deficit, it would have been a neutral year.

My prediction is once all this is over they shall just carry on as though over 100 billion dollars of debt had never been added.

Regretfully you are probably right.

The simple reason for paying off debt is that once it is gone, you no longer have to spend $30 billion (or 11% of the Federal government's annual income) on debt servicing.

In other words you could reduce taxes to the tune of $30 billion and leave the cash in the hands of the public to fuel the economy or add better federal services or a combination of the two.

Unfortunately, that needs a multi-decade plan which would run over a series of competing governments all agreeing to sustain similar austerity programs. There're absolutely no political benefits for each of them for doing so. Therefore: Spend! Spend! Spend!

:brickwall:

 

[MilEME09]

Regretfully you are probably right.

The simple reason for paying off debt is that once it is gone, you no longer have to spend $30 billion (or 11% of the Federal government's annual income) on debt servicing.

In other words you could reduce taxes to the tune of $30 billion and leave the cash in the hands of the public to fuel the economy or add better federal services or a combination of the two.

Unfortunately, that needs a multi-decade plan which would run over a series of competing governments all agreeing to sustain similar austerity programs. There're absolutely no political benefits for each of them for doing so. Therefore: Spend! Spend! Spend!

:brickwall:

The smart thing to do, atleast in my limited understanding point of view, an all party committee, chaired by the bank of Canada govenor, all sitting members must have a economics or financial background. Develop a plan to pay off the national debt, then have all parties sign on to it and make it a binding agreement.

 

[FJAG]

The smart thing to do, atleast in my limited understanding point of view, an all party committee, chaired by the bank of Canada govenor, all sitting members must have a economics or financial background. Develop a plan to pay off the national debt, then have all parties sign on to it and make it a binding agreement.

You could make it a constitutional amendment mandating a system of debt reduction when certain parameters are met followed by balanced budgets.

But that's a bit of a pipedream.

:cheers:

 

[Journeyman]

... all sitting members must have a economics or financial background.

So merely being a President's daughter and son-in-law wouldn't be sufficient qualification?  Hmm. 

 

[PuckChaser]

So merely being a President's daughter and son-in-law wouldn't be sufficient qualification?  Hmm.

We shouldn't cast stones, we voted out a trained economist for a drama teacher.

 

[dimsum]

We shouldn't cast stones, we voted out a trained economist for a drama teacher.

The difference being "voted".  No one voted for Ivanka or Jared.

 

[Remius]

The requirements to be PM don’t include “trained economist” or “drama teacher” or “not really an insurance broker”

In fact he or she doesn’t even have to be an MP...or be elected.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

The difference being "voted".  No one voted for Ivanka or Jared.

No one voted for Gerald Butts either.

 

[PuckChaser]

The difference being "voted".  No one voted for Ivanka or Jared.

No one voted for Gerald Butts and Katie Telford either, but they seemed to be able to bend the PM's ear to their causes pretty easily. I realize how hyper partisan everyone (not directed at you Dimsum) gets as soon as you mention Trump, but if you blocked out the names the situations look exactly the same.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Best thing I read on Facebook today....."Too many people out.    34.05% had no problem staying home during the last federal election."

 

[FJAG]

No one voted for Gerald Butts and Katie Telford either, but they seemed to be able to bend the PM's ear to their causes pretty easily. I realize how hyper partisan everyone (not directed at you Dimsum) gets as soon as you mention Trump, but if you blocked out the names the situations look exactly the same.

Look at me. I'm about to become an apologist for Gerald Butts.

The big difference between Butts and JAVANKA is that Butts actually has some twenty years of political experience in different roles and at different levels of government.

While I don't like the guy one bit, he at least has some credentials for being where he is/was.

:stirpot:

 

[PuckChaser]

Butts is a career political advisor, he has no private sector experience. Again, not elected but advising a PM. Just like Kushner, but at least Kushner had private sector real estate development experience.

Trying to tell me Trump's nepotism is bad but Trudeau's nepotism is good to go?

 

[Remius]

Butts is a career political advisor, he has no private sector experience. Again, not elected but advising a PM. Just like Kushner, but at least Kushner had private sector real estate development experience.

Trying to tell me Trump's nepotism is bad but Trudeau's nepotism is good to go?

Depends on how you look at it.

Family?  Probably the worst kind of nepotism.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Depends on how you look at it.

Family?  Probably the worst kind of nepotism.

The blood of the convent is thicker than the water of the womb.

 

[kkwd]

Trump says he’ll ‘suspend immigration’ into the U.S.

Not much info yet but it is sure to cause a few ripples, maybe even waves.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-suspend-immigration-coronavirus-197755

 

[stellarpanther]

The U.S. border is closed anyway to pretty much everyone so it's not really going to make a difference.  His base might fall for it though and think he's doing something.

 

[dimsum]

Butts is a career political advisor, he has no private sector experience. Again, not elected but advising a PM. Just like Kushner, but at least Kushner had private sector real estate development experience.

Trying to tell me Trump's nepotism is bad but Trudeau's nepotism is good to go?

Like FJAG, I can't believe I'm going to be a Gerald Butts apologist either but as you said, he has a career of political experience which would be useful when advising the PM.  Private sector real estate development experience is less useful in this case.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Political experience makes you good at elections, not policy.

Every successful statesman must first be a successful campaigner.  But not every successful campaigner becomes a successful statesman.

 

[kkwd]

Who would've thunk it, convicted felons going back to crime.

Inmates committing crimes after coronavirus release ‘unconscionable’: de Blasio

https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/unconscionable-for-released-inmates-to-commit-crimes-de-blasio/

 

[kkwd]

The U.S. border is closed anyway to pretty much everyone so it's not really going to make a difference.  His base might fall for it though and think he's doing something.

Base? Don't know about that but Eric Swalwell weighed in, on Twitter of course.
https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1252425205948899329

Rep. Eric Swalwell
@RepSwalwell
We don’t need to protect America from immigrants. We need to protect her from you.

He did receive a reply saying

Robert Anthony
@robgarant
And how dare he presume America's gender?

Does that make Swalwell sexist? He is using gender specific descriptions and I heard that is not just not on these days.