Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[Redeye]

Dennis & SKT - I wrote a facetious answer to that question for a blog a while back on being a "recovering conservative", but I think I will give a more reasoned answer (it was written mainly as a humourous polemic).

First of all, I don't despise Stephen Harper.  I don't think he's a bad person, or a particularly bad leader.  I voted for him after all (well, not him directly, I don't live in Calgary).  I don't consider myself especially a "progressive".  I'm a pragmatist, and more or less in the middle slightly tilted right.  I used to be much more of a far right leaner, a card carrying rabid Tory.  Remember the scandal with the PC Youth on campaign buses for Mike Harris getting drunk and acting like idiots?  I was one of them.

Like you, Dennis, I realize that Harper is generally a pragmatic guy, and he has to be.  If he decided to actually pursue a lot of his personal beliefs in policy he'd be done.  And he has rather eloquently explained that he considers, for example, his views on certain social issues like abortion not appropriate to try to legislate on.  Ditto with gay marriage, he realized it was not in the country's interest (nor that of his political career perhaps) to fight over it so he's basically worked to squelch the social conservative extreme of his party.

That said I have to attribute his staying in office as much to the incompetence of the Liberal Party in selecting leaders as anything else.  I think he's won not so much because people think he's a great leader or like his party, but because the Grits haven't inspired any swing voters from either end of the spectrum to come back.  Running buffoons like Stephane Dion was not a good choice for them.

Harper - like all politicians - has made stupid mistakes (like the two GST cuts) and I think to many on the left (from what I can tell) comes off as being arrogant, as though he has some long standing majority, rather than a minority government.  He seems to have sold some of them on the virtues of a minority government.  He's also a hypocrite (take a look at the Senate), and that doesn't sell well.  He also seems to take credit for things that weren't his doing.  For example, he was all too happy to brag about the stability of Canada's financial system in the wake of the 2008 crash, but it was regulations which I believe were mainly implemented by the Liberals that helped that happen - and Conservatives largely seemed in favour of relaxing a lot of those regulations.  For what it's worth, I've often defended him to more left-leaning folks who'll attack him based on the fact that he's avoided social issues adeptly, and when people attack him for taking positions I can see no realistic alternative to.

Anyhow, I'm a pragmatist because it has become clearer to me that no one has all the right answers, and the only way to appear to do so seems to be to cast one's self against a hypothetical opposite.  To illustrate what I mean by that, consider the reaction many are having to the nuclear disaster presently unfolding in Japan.  Broadly, people (across the spectrum it seems) scream "no more nukes" and "renewable power" and "wind and solar".  They cast nuclear as a horror against perfectly clean renewable power sources - which of course do not exist, or at least not in any way that could replace nuclear, which when one does a more reasoned assessment is superior to the viable options - coal, oil and natural gas.  I could say hydroelectricity has a better safety record which is probably true, but the key there is you need sources.

I mused in some forum that in the event of an election I don't know who I'd vote for.  In the last two federal elections I voted for the Green Party.  I don't agree with their platform terribly strongly (though much of it comes from the right if you actually read into it), but I figured that every vote for them helped them raise money to become a louder voice, and I think they have one worth hearing.  Hell, if the Bloc Quebecois occupies space in the House of Commons, why not them.  I knew they had no chance of winning, but I felt better walking out of the polling station than I would have voting Conservative, and I've never voted Liberal and I'm still not inclined to start.  In the first case it wasn't so much to do with Harper, and everything to do with the actual candidate (Dean Del Mastro), for whom I had no respect from a variety of interactions and his policy ideas.

Alright, I think I'm jumping all over the place and have said enough for one post.  I'm actually heading to the Wardroom for a drink and over to 0ttoDestruct's place to drink his whiskey and eat his food, so I'll end off here for now!

 

[Jed]

Redeye, I will apologise right from the start for throwing in my 2 cents at this point, as I expect my following comments may illicit a long rambling response that I will have difficulty following the logic.

I too, like D. Ruhl and others, are very curious and wish to understand your point of view. Maybe I have ADD but I can't seem sustain the effort to read through to the end of the posts.

You used the example of a mistake made by Harper as the GST reductions. Why is that a mistake? It seemed to get a lot of votes and make many folks happy west of Thunder Bay?

I may be totally off base here, but my instincts tell me that you have an aversion to the 403 or 780 area codes. That's ok though, I freely admit my aversion to the 613 area code.

 

[Dissident]

Maybe I am rationalizing (which I despise), but my perspective on the senate is not that PM Harper is a hypocrite. He is merely, as you have pointed out, pragmatic. To get a senate reform passed, he would need the support of the senate, no? Hence it would be logical for him to stack the senate until such time as he can make the changes he longs to do.

 

[ModlrMike]

Maybe I am rationalizing (which I despise), but my perspective on the senate is not that PM Harper is a hypocrite. He is merely, as you have pointed out, pragmatic. To get a senate reform passed, he would need the support of the senate, no? Hence it would be logical for him to stack the senate until such time as he can make the changes he longs to do.

Indeed. What he actually committed to was to abide by the wishes of the electorate in those provinces that held senatorial elections. At no time did he say he wouldn't appoint senators from those provinces that don't hold elections for the senate.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Redeye-

Thank-you for your post.  I don't agree with much of it, but it is thought provoking.

 

[Redeye]

Redeye, I will apologise right from the start for throwing in my 2 cents at this point, as I expect my following comments may illicit a long rambling response that I will have difficulty following the logic.

Not in this case, pretty simple.  Cutting the GST was stupid for a few economic reasons, but the simplest explanation is that consumption taxes are generally speaking the fairest taxes, particularly with the exemptions that apply to the tax in Canada.  I am fairly well off in terms of my income but when I did the math on how much of my net income goes things that are GST-taxable, the savings weren't much to write home about, and in a lot of cases businesses simply sucked up the difference.  The place I went to lunch most days at the time simply added the tax cuts to their profit and kept my $7 lunch special the same price.  Sure, it helped on big ticket purchases but I think it worked out to me being lucky to save $300 in a year as a result.  Not chump change, but the aggregate impact was to turn a surplus into a deficit for the country.  If tax cuts were the priority, then cutting personal rates and/or raising the basic personal exemption would have put more money in the pockets of "working families" probably, which would then be spent back into the economy.

That's a brief explanation, I'm typing on someone else's laptop which I'm hating, so I'm going to leave it at that.  Globe & Mail ran a good op ed piece last week on the topic, and googling Value Added Taxes or consumption taxes should turn up plenty.

I may be totally off base here, but my instincts tell me that you have an aversion to the 403 or 780 area codes. That's ok though, I freely admit my aversion to the 613 area code.

Yeah, we'll go with totally off base. So ridiculously so that's worth no further comment.

 

[Redeye]

Redeye-

Thank-you for your post.  I don't agree with much of it, but it is thought provoking.

You're welcome. I only came to the points of view I did by daring to interact with people I disagreed with!  That's how civil society in a democracy is supposed to work.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Redeye,

I'm with you (at least partially) on the GST.  Consumptoin taxes are the fairest way to tax and they have the added bonus of encouraging savings.  Although Canada bordering the US (and the bulk of the Canadian population living less than a day's drive from a US outlet mall) one has be very careful at what rate consumption taxes are set.

I believe that Harper was actually playing deeper game with the GST cuts.  My read was that he was trying to get the Federal Government to shrink back to it's traditional areas of concern (Defence, Foreign Affairs, etc) by removing $10 Billion or so/Annum of funding.  This was before the crash in 2008 and deficits coming back into fashion...

 

[Infanteer]

In a somewhat related vein, I'm reading with interest on the collective breath holding of the British PM's "Big Society".  It seems quite ambitious.  Anyone following this?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

No- do you have a link?

 

[ModlrMike]

No- do you have a link?

http://thebigsociety.co.uk/

 

[Brad Sallows]

Criticisms of the GST cut almost always dwell on the fairness/efficiency of consumption vs income taxes and miss the larger point, which was never about fairness or efficiency.  The root of public spending problems is spending growth.  Curtailing the freedom of the opposition parties - all of whom like to spend - to plan whole new spending programs around the expectation of federal budget surpluses is an important achievement.  A GST cut is politically easier (and more advantageous) to do, and politically harder to undo.  The difficulty of turning it back is what makes the cut useful.

Now the parties are compelled to explain where they expect to obtain more money for new programs.  We saw it with Dion's "revenue neutral" (it was not - the arithmetic showed there was going to be extra money for new spending, with a federal child care program at the front of the list) Green Shift, and we see it again with the call for the corporate tax cut rollback (again, child care is the program waiting in the wings).  The Liberals have become tiresomely predictable: if they promise some sort of revenue rearrangement, be sure to look for the barely concealed liberated funding which they will use as the basis of promises to buy votes - buying you with your own money (taxes), in effect.

To a first approximation (allowing for fees and revenue-generating assets), public spending is taxation - now, or future.  The prosperous decade 1997-2007 was when we should have been clearing the books of all the "future" spending of 1975-1985.  The government did a p!ss-poor job of it.  Whenever there is a surplus, it should be used to clear past spending from the books - no end-of-year showers of candy.  If tax cuts are the only way to take the bag of candy away from the irresponsible parties, so be it, until they all agree - preferably in legislation - that budget surpluses may only be used to reduce public debt.

 

[Redeye]

Redeye,

I'm with you (at least partially) on the GST.  Consumptoin taxes are the fairest way to tax and they have the added bonus of encouraging savings.  Although Canada bordering the US (and the bulk of the Canadian population living less than a day's drive from a US outlet mall) one has be very careful at what rate consumption taxes are set.

Only to a certain extent - GST is still collected on goods imported above the basic personal exemption, so most big ticket items are taxed - and I think in many (most) cases, the difference in price irrespective of the taxes is what attracts shoppers to the the States.  I recently did a bit of a shopping binge in the States and even after paying sales tax when I got back to Canada I was still far ahead.

I believe that Harper was actually playing deeper game with the GST cuts.  My read was that he was trying to get the Federal Government to shrink back to it's traditional areas of concern (Defence, Foreign Affairs, etc) by removing $10 Billion or so/Annum of funding.  This was before the crash in 2008 and deficits coming back into fashion...

To an extent, perhaps - but I'd have been quite happy to leave spending the same and continue to reap large surpluses during a boom to pay down the national debt a fair bit - or at least make the tax changes to income tax instead of consumption taxes.  I think to a great extent that probably echoes what Brad Sallows is saying in his post - the idea of running deficits during recessions is to pay them off during booms, not hand out tax cuts ("candy").

 

[SeaKingTacco]

To an extent, perhaps - but I'd have been quite happy to leave spending the same and continue to reap large surpluses during a boom to pay down the national debt a fair bit - or at least make the tax changes to income tax instead of consumption taxes.  I think to a great extent that probably echoes what Brad Sallows is saying in his post - the idea of running deficits during recessions is to pay them off during booms, not hand out tax cuts ("candy").

You know, if you feel undertaxed, you can always write a cheque to the Government.  I'm pretty sure that they will be more than happy to cash it. 

 

[Redeye]

You know, if you feel undertaxed, you can always write a cheque to the Government.  I'm pretty sure that they will be more than happy to cash it. 

How does my accountant put it?  Everyone has an obligation to pay taxes, but a responsibility to arrange their affairs to pay only what's due.

 

[a_majoor]

Public service unions put on the brown shirts:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576232780047736062.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

Wisconsin Unions Get Ugly

Now they're threatening businesses that stay neutral in the state's budget battle.

Having lost their fight in the legislature, Wisconsin unions are now getting out the steel pipes for those who don't step lively to their cause. A letter we've seen that was sent to businesses in southeastern Wisconsin shows that Big Labor's latest strategy is to threaten small businesses with boycotts if they don't publicly declare their support for government union monopoly power.

Dated March 28, 2011, the letter is addressed to "DEAR UNION GROVE AREA BUSINESS OWNER/MANAGER," in Racine County. And it begins with this warm greeting: "It is unfortunate that you have chosen 'not' to support public workers rights in Wisconsin. In recent past weeks you have been offered a sign(s) by a public employee(s) who works in one of the state facilities in the Union Grove area. These signs simply said 'This Business Supports Workers Rights,' a simple, subtle and we feel non-controversial statement given the facts at this time."

We doubt "subtle" is the word a business owner would use to describe this offer he is being told he can't refuse.

The letter is signed by Jim Parrett, the "Field Rep." for Council 24 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which is the most powerful union in the AFL-CIO. The letter presents a litany of objections to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's changes to benefits and public union collective bargaining power, describing them as "things that make life working in a 24-7 facility tolerable."

The missive concludes by noting that, "With that we'd ask that you reconsider taking a sign and stance to support public employees in this community. Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members."

So even businesses that stay neutral in the political battle are considered the enemy and will be punished. Charming stuff, and especially coming from a union that claims (wrongly) to be losing its constitutional rights. Free speech for others apparently isn't all that important.

On Wednesday we called the telephone number listed under Mr. Parrett's name but his voicemail was full. We then spoke with union officials who said they'd ask Mr. Parrett to call us back, but he never called. He has since confirmed the accuracy of the letter to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which reports that the threat is an outgrowth of a boycott campaign by other unions that has targeted M&I Bank and Kwik Trip because those companies or their executives supported Mr. Walker's budget proposals.

This kind of union thuggery is all too common and is in keeping with the larger political goal of preventing union members from exercising their own rights of free association. The Walker reform that union leaders hate the most would require unions to be recertified annually by a majority of their members and let those members opt out of paying union dues.

Union chiefs like Mr. Parrett know what that means for their political clout. After taking office in 2005, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels used an executive order to end collective bargaining for public workers—a power granted by former Governor Evan Bayh.

The number of state public employees has since fallen to 28,700 from 35,000. But more important, the vast majority of those employees stopped paying union dues. Today, 1,490 state employees pay union dues in Indiana, down from 16,408 in 2005. Similar declines have played out in Washington State and Utah, when those states gave members the freedom to choose.

This is the prospect that has Wisconsin labor leaders so furious these days—furious enough that they'll even threaten the livelihoods of local business owners who won't join them at the barricades. This is the nasty modern reality of government union power.

 

[Redeye]

Maybe I missed something, but since when is boycotting a business (ie, encouraging people to exercise their freedom to choose with whom they wish to do business) considered "thuggery"?

Only in right wing media, I guess.

Public service unions put on the brown shirts:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576232780047736062.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

 

[Jed]

Maybe I missed something, but since when is boycotting a business (ie, encouraging people to exercise their freedom to choose with whom they wish to do business) considered "thuggery"?

Only in right wing media, I guess.

When a faceless, militant organization of people use wholesale intimidation ala a gang or mob, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, that, in my opinion is 'thuggery'.

Redeye, you were born in the wrong century. TC Douglas would have appreciated your help taking on the RCMP in the 30's.

 

[ModlrMike]

Maybe I missed something, but since when is boycotting a business (ie, encouraging people to exercise their freedom to choose with whom they wish to do business) considered "thuggery"?

Only in right wing media, I guess.

So individual consumers can exercise freedom of choice, but not business owners? Rather two faced approach.

You missed the "do this or else" part of the piece.

"With that we'd ask that you reconsider taking a sign and stance to support public employees in this community. Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members."

Looks like a pretty explicit threat to me.

 

[Redeye]

So individual consumers can exercise freedom of choice, but not business owners? Rather two faced approach.

You missed the "do this or else" part of the piece.

Business owners still have their freedom of choice.  They're being informed that a large block of consumers may choose to boycott them.  Yeah, it's perhaps a little aggressive, not something I'd want to be associated with, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it thuggery.

Looks like a pretty explicit threat to me.

A "threat" to take one's business elsewhere?  Yeah, real big threat.  People make those decisions constantly. I do, certainly.  You, I'm sure, do to.  If there was a threat to actually do harm to people or physical damage to their property, that's actual thuggery.