That Stephen Harper took time to study Karl Rove's playbook is clear but the one chapter that really got his attention was the one devoted to "defunding" the central government.
The idea behind defunding government is to leave it so impoverished that it can no longer afford social programmes. When the Rove/Bush/Cheney regime seized power they faced the prospect of defunding a government with surpluses. That all changed on 9/11 - the surpluses were gone. However Bush acted as though they were still around, changing the fundamental nature of American taxation, cutting taxes for the most advantaged and waging multi-trillion dollar wars without end on borrowed money. In the process he's almost guaranteed a cataclysmic future for America's Social Security system and other entitlement programmes as his debt and deficit spending comes home to roost in the next administrations.
The only war Bush has succeeded at is the class war he has waged on his country's working and middle classes.
Stephen Harper has done a good job of defunding the Canadian government despite the restrictions of minority government. He did it by stealth, spending increases and tax cuts.
Harper's own Karl Rove, political strategist Tom Flanagan told Canadian Press the Harper "Conservatives are gradually "tightening the screws on the federal government," leaving more money in taxpayers' pockets and making it harder for Ottawa to spend.
To launch any big-ticket initiatives over the next few years a prime minister – whether Harper or a successor – would either need to risk political suicide or hope for an economic miracle.
That's because raising taxes, returning to a deficit or slashing existing programs could be the only ways to pay for new spending, barring an unexpected economic boom.
"They've gradually re-engineered the system. I'm quite impressed with it," said Flanagan, a political strategist who ran the 2004 Conservative campaign."
I'm not entirely convinced that Flanagan's crowing is valid. Repeated polls have shown Canadians to be a centrist, social-moderate bunch and, while the Harper measures will present a problem for future governments, I don't think they're insurmountable.
Without launching into my theories again, I will point out that Harper has an early 20th century approach to leadership that's going to become increasingly irrelevant in the face of the environmental, security and economic changes we'll be facing in the coming decades. Those realities, much more than Wilsonian ideology, will shape the relationship between the Canadian government and its people. Simply put, I think we're stronger than he is.
5 comments:
I call bullshit on Flanagan. What can be changed to 'impress' that jackass can be changed back. Like you say MoS, we are stronger than these twats and their time is drawing to a close. The upcoming global realities of the 2010's will sweep these relics aside.
Government in Canada has always been behind. It would be fantastic to see a PM of this country the PM because she/he has nothing but the good of the country in mind. Cheers
Don't fool yourself, MoS, these jackasses don't want to get rid of the Feds, they want to reshape it an mold it into a weapon the can use to dominate and subjugate those that oppose them and to mold the country into the shape they wish. It will be for our own good, of course, because its always for our own good.
I hope we're right, Ed. Canadians, like all societies, do change generationally and, unlike any time in the past, we are herded into faster, more dramatic changes today by the onrush of technology. Still I like to believe we hold core values that remain specifically because they sustain us against the tides of change, allowing us to adapt without yielding.
I know what you're saying, Mike. I suspect the agenda is to weaken us enough to make us relatively easier to control and manipulate, even if that falls short of outright subjugation. I don't believe they do that for its own sake but to eliminate obstacles to the evolution of a Republican, social-conservative reality in Canada.
This means that Harper may have prevented himself from imposing a middle class tax cut to help his core base. The flat tax is dead and buried in the forseeable future.
So-con reality? He has yet to consider drastic measures such as income splitting. Three chances and no dice. Drastically increasing the child benefit and imposing a homemakers allowance for stay at home moms are a far cry from Harper's vision.
These things did not happen because of Harper's minority situation. In fact, the Grits had responded to Harper's challenge by trying to slash corporate tax rates much lower than what the Cons are offering.
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