David Frum, writing in the National Post, gushes with praise for the Harper government. "Canada," he writes, "can fairly claim to be the best governed country in the world." The occasion for Frum's accolades was the release of the Conservatives' 2012 budget -- which cut government spending, gave almost 20,000 civil servants their walking papers and raised the Canadian retirement age from 65 to 67.
One should remember that Frum famously wrote speeches for George W. Bush -- most particularly the one which labelled Iraq as a premier member of the "axis of evil." He has also claimed that the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau was "a very bad man." He took another swipe at Trudeau yesterday. Compared to Trudeau, he wrote, Harper is the very soul of common sense:
Trudeau’s budgeting was notorious for its recklessness. Harper’s budgeting is impeccable in its caution. By 2015-2016, Canada will have reduced both spending and debt to pre-recession levels. Nobody else on earth will be able to say anything like that.
What's reckless in the Harper government's economic projections:
A less dramatic economic policy can support growth and boost revenues. Here’s a trade that a lot of other countries would gratefully accept: Jim Flaherty’s plan allows spending to rise by 11.65% over 5 years. Over those same five years, revenues are expected to surge by 26%.
Frum's confidence in Canadian fiscal policy sounds a lot like his certitude that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- a claim that Frum and Stephen Harper eagerly supported. Frum has since become a pariah in the Republican establishment, turning on those who used to help pay his bills.
He completely ignores the fact that on the same day the budget was released, the Director of Elections Canada appeared before a parliamentary committee to report that, during our last election, there were complaints of fraud in 200 of Canada's 308 ridings.
Clearly, Mr. Frum suffers from a severe case of misplaced admiration.
This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.
4 comments:
That Frum has any credibility with anyone is ridiculous.
But the scum-bag elites are able to twist logic and reality to make the invasion of Iraq a success.
So why not pretend Frum's hackneyed, unoriginal delusions about economics make sense as well?
I think the most interesting aspect of the "reckless" vs "cautious" approach to our country's future is found in the fact that if Frum (or most Conservatives) were honest about the future they would admit that Harper is the most reckless of all possible Prime Ministers. His abandonment of all sorts of health and environmental regulations, as well as his recalcitrance in enforcing existing environmental rules on the tarsands project means that Stephen Harper is destroying our future health and prosperity. How could Harper be more reckless than allowing large corporations to poison our rivers and lands to the point of total destruction? If we really want to look for the ultimate in recklessness we need look no further than Harper.
Harper's approach is symptomatic of what got us into this funk, Kirby. He doesn't look past "the next quarter."
Worse still, he's destroying the equitable division of wealth that used to keep the economy growing.
He claims that it's the responsibility of business to get the economy moving. But, if ordinary workers can't buy what business wants to sell, there will be no economic growth.
It's interesting, thwap, that Frum has rethought his support for Bush and Cheney.
His analysis of their policies was never objective. If it was, he would have got his opinions right the first time around.
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