Conservative supporters upset with Tory budget

[Francis2004]

So it seems Stephen Harper cannot please anyone. It was obvious that this was going to be the case and that he was going to be asked to step down soon.

First of was the denial of a recession that was about to devastated the Canadian economy and the head in the sand attitude for an Economist that should have seen it coming months prior.

Second was the prorogation of Parliament that shot him in the foot when he could have gotten a Majority but froze everything.

Now a Budget that makes even the most Conservative Voter angry.. Steve ( as Mommy calls him ) is in deep waters and is stuck between a rock and a Liberal place..

Iggy is rolling up in the polls with Jack mad at him and looking good for coming out of the coalition smelling great with everything a Liberal would want without the debt on his shoulders.. Nobody will be able to say "This was Ignatieff's Fault for putting us back into debt" but Conservatives all know for many many years they will NEVER be able to use Trudeau did it without hearing so did HARPER and even Faster then MULRONEY..

So here lies Harper's problem.. He has to try to get popular but can't.. Now he is losing popularity within the Conservative ranks.. Now what ?

Core supporters of Canada's Conservative party are riled up about the budget handed down by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government and some believe he has strayed from his principles, says a former party strategist.



Tom Flanagan, a professor and former Conservative campaign manager, said Sunday that these supporters are angry that the prime minister authorized a budget that will see his country plunge into an $85 billion deficit over the next five years.


"I am getting more people e-mailing me and commenting to me on this than I ever had by far on any other issue," Flanagan told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.

CTV.ca | Conservative supporters upset with Tory budget

Let's all hope Steve's Hockey book does well..

​

 

[Machjo]

I'm by no means a Conservative supporter, but I am a fiscal conservative, one of the the few things that could get me to maybe play with the idea of possibly considering to vote for them. Now that the Conservatives have proven themselves to not even be fiscal conservatives, what's left to vote for?

I sympathize with the NDP's apparent concern for the poor, but find that they're not too bright when it comes to actually helping the poor. Corporate handouts aren't the way to go. The Liberals are ishy washy on nerly everything, so nothing to impress me about them. And the Conservatives have made us into a corporate welfare state.

Now, party-wise, I'm looking at either the Green Party or maybe the Libertarian Party. Otherwise, I'll be looking for independents.

 

[Avro]

Maybe it's time for Refoooooooooooooooorm part II.:lol:

 

[Machjo]

Maybe it's time for Refoooooooooooooooorm part II.:lol:

Oh God no. All they wanted to do is waste all our money on the military. We'd probably have nukes today if Reform ever had made a majority.

 

[Machjo]

Another idea I've considered was a kind of no-frills, no-gimmicks type of socialist party. And here's how it would be different from the NDP:

The NDP often likes to waste money on ishy washy culture stuff, CBC, theatre, blah blah blah, and it has often become such a slave of labour unions that it has often enough abandoned its core principles to turn to corporate welfare which mainly benefits the CEO's, not to mention that many labour unions are better paid than the general public. In this respect, the NDP has become the classical Orwellian pig, looking ever more like corporatists.

Now let's say that the NDP banned strikes, de-officialized unions, cut corporate welfare and spending on all non-essentials like culture fluff and Official Bilingualism, and instead directed all its tax money to job training to get people back to work. As for taxes, it could transfer some taxes to resources. The NDP opposed this last election arguing that it would hurt the poor. I agree. But if all its money is going to go to helping the poor, that should more than compensate. But the advantage with this is that we would no longer need a big buraucracy to protect the environment. A gas tax would let the market take care of that and lower income tax at the same time.

Income and wealth taxes could be made tax deductible as charitable contributions. This would still achieve the socialist goal of having everyone contribute to the community, but also allowing them to have more say in how the money is spent, thus bypassing complicated buraucracy, thus making it much more efficient. Some might argue that a lower income tax lets the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Yes, that is a problem, but I have a solution to that presented below.

As for redistribution of wealth, maybe have a non-essential-wealth-ceiling tax, whereby above a certain level of accumulated wealth, the government takes the rest. This would not count essential wealth, which could include money invested into your business, a house you obviously need to live in, etc. So this would encourage people to invest in their business to create jobs if they don't want the government to get its hands on it. Or they could just give it to charity or just spend it on intangibles, all of which would crete jobs while giving them a choice of paying tax or not.

As for government efficiency, negotiate some kind of official monolingualism with Quebec. One possibility would be federal bilingualism and local or regional monolingulaism in government. So in Quebec government woudl function in French, and elsewhere in English, with maybe some exceptions in Nunavut and Labrador. Parliament Hill could be bilingual. This woudl save much money and possibly even reduce sovereignist fervour in Quebec.

I woud want the government to be fiscally conservative though. In other words, if it wants to increase spending, it must increase taxes first. I could be all for that as long as they're honest about it. Don't promise increased spending and pretend taxes won't go up in the process.

Such a party could be said to be moderately socialist but still willing to work in a market economy, not too dogmatic but also not into all the frills and gimmicks either. Such a party might have a chance.