Monday, May 21, 2018

this tired old media narrative from the 1970s is coming back up: that the ndp are "fiscally irresponsible". that's propaganda from like three generations ago...

the facts in canada are that the ndp tends to be the party with the strongest fiscal discipline, as demonstrated by it's strong endorsement from the fraser institute (for roy romanow). bob rae is famous for his "rae days", which were a straight out attack on workers to try and cut the deficit.

on the other hand, the conservatives are known for running the largest deficits, due to their insistence on tax cuts that create structural deficits. they get into office by bribing people with tax cuts, but then they realize nothing can be cut after all, so they just let the deficits pile up.

these are just the facts: the ndp balances budgets by cutting programs, and the conservatives run huge deficits by decreasing taxes.

the liberals tend to exist in the middle, which is really the worst if you're an ideological small-c conservative: they run deficits, because they don't cut programs. they tend to privatize, instead, when they ought to raise corporate taxes, or ask the feds to print more money.

but, the narrative the media is going to present - that the conservatives are fiscally responsible and the ndp are not - is simply a fantasy reality. it may have been true before you were born, granted. but, it hasn't been true in forty years. in the modern era, it's the exact opposite: the conservatives run the biggest deficits, and the ndp run the smallest ones.

that's just the facts. just empirical observation.