These days, populists run against government. They claim it's a luxury we can't afford. But, Alan Freeman writes, it's populism itself that's expensive. Need proof? Consider what is happening in the United States and the province of Ontario:
This week, Trump announced that his administration was going to spend $12 billion US to compensate farmers for the repercussions from the Washington-stoked trade wars against a multitude of trading partners, especially China. After being slapped with tariffs, the Chinese have hit back, particularly at soybeans and other commodities, which they’ve decided to buy elsewhere.
U.S. farmers, losing lucrative markets, have screamed bloody murder and since they tend to vote Republican, Trump has been forced to pay them off. Hard to think of a more wasteful and useless expenditure of public funds.
Then again, the Trump administration clearly doesn’t care much about the state of the U.S. government’s finances. It recently announced that the annual budget deficit will rise by nearly US$100-billion annually going forward above previous estimates, despite stronger than expected growth.
The U.S. deficit in the 2018-19 fiscal year will be a staggering US$1.1-trillion, or 5.1 per cent of American GDP. That’s getting up there, not quite Greece in the bad old days, but worse than most self-respecting first-world countries. But for Trump and the so-called conservative right, not all dollars are created equal. Spending on Medicaid for the poor or on food stamps may be evil but spending on the Pentagon, tax cuts for the rich or GOP-voting farmers, that’s fine.
And, in Ontario, there's Trump's Canadian Cousin, Doug Ford:
Then there’s the cancellation of the renewable energy projects. Energy Minister Greg Rickford claimed it will save taxpayers $790-million, but when asked how much the cancellations will cost, he couldn’t say.
Legislation introduced in the Ontario legislation is aimed at strictly limiting compensation for cap and trade and the energy project cancellation — shades of banana-republic strong-arming of investors – but don’t underestimate the abilities of phalanxes of smart lawyers to find constitutional and trade reasons to go after Ontario for compensation.
A classic example of this kind of wasteful spending is the cancellation of the White Pines Wind Project in Prince Edward County after 10 years of work by its German owner and just as the project was coming online. The German company says it’s looking at a potential loss of $100-million. The province is attempting to limit compensation legislatively but will still have to pay to dismantle the whole thing, terminate employees and decommission the site.
Tens of millions of dollars wasted and Ontario will end up with – zip. A smaller version of the cancellation of the gas-fired gas plants by the Liberal government back in 2011, which cost taxpayers $1-billion and forever undermined the credibility of the Liberals as responsible protectors of the public purse.
And so it goes with other Ford policies. What’s the ultimate cost of playing around with the governance and leadership of Hydro One? Great to have saved the CEO salary of the axed Mayo Schmidt but that cost pales compared to the big loss taken by the government with the decline in Hydro One’s stock price since those announcements.
Ontarians still own 47% of Ontario Hydro. But Ford will blame it all on Kathleen Wynne, just as Trump blames it all on Barack Obama.
Yep. Populism doesn't come cheap.
Image: Tigrai Online
10 comments:
All this is true, Owen, but what saddens me the most is how easily people are manipulated and fooled by the populists that now blight the political landscape. Far too many people behave as first-graders (and I mean no disrespect to the tykes) who, largely innocent of the world, accept at face value what they are told by the putative 'adults' in the room.
I agree, Lorne. I am continually amazed these days by the progress of political con men. I used to think adults knew a con man when he showed up at their doorsteps. I was mistaken.
Keep in mind that Trump paid what ? 50 millions to silence some of the Trump University big losers he swindled.. so he's just throwing billions around now. He has such a winning care about American farmers, its astonishing..
Here's an analogy for you.. re what 'we' in North America are facing vis a vis 'populism' - majority governments - trade deals gone sour - corrupt politicians - you name it - your darkest concern..
Anyone who has 'climbed' Mount Rundle, or any of its 3 peaks in Banff National Park, overlooking Banff knows this.. You are facing an uphill switchback 'trail' for approx 3 hours of thigh burning ascent. The payoff ? One crawls to the edge of the peak lest vertigo overcome you (its a sheer overhanging drop of thousands of feet.. and looks east along the Bow River to far away Calgary) Most hydrate, cram energy bars, raisins or bananas, dry their socks or don fresh ones.. and rest for 20 minutes .. but oh, the descent ! Thighs, calves, ankles, lungs.. tremble at the odd descending angle.. muscles you did not know you have.. screetch, burn, cramp, cry out.. Then you walk or limp past the Banff Springs Hotel.. to downtown & collapse.
My point is.. its a two way trip.. and the downhill side will hurt as much as the endless uphill grind.. and the likelyhood of getting hurt is far far higher. That's where we are today re politics, politicians & governance.. and we have not even started the climb ! And if there is some moral 'victory' to be had at vanquishing corrupt politicians.. we will only be at the halfway point.. the pain will continue.. and we may be on 'our last legs' and headed for a nasty fall.. extremely vulnerable in fact.
We don't really 'choose' our riding representatives, they are presented to us via mainstream media & then their names arrive on a ballot every 4 years.. or as in the case of Stephen Harper & his inclination to sudden prorogue when in trouble.. months or a couple of years.. and in a curious wrapping of Election Fraud and black ops. It went downhill for Stevie et al.. the descent was swift.. Perhaps el Trumpo and Dough Ford will find the descent sudden. Of course these folks never go to prison.. the old double standard for Old Stock Old Snots looks after them and their wealth.. and bevies of 500/hr lawyers lay down supporting fire as the creeps limp or crawl away.
The rescue of Canada, Ontario, BC, Alberta etc, or the collapsing empire of the USA will be a monstrous climb.. years & years, multiple iterations of 'governance' to peel back. Much like Harper, the Trump quislings are 'seeding' the judicial ranks for decades of sellout services & judgements. The Environment will be one victim. That being the air, water, lands, habitat, species.. to enhance resource stripping. The other victim will be society & culture - decency - honesty - ethics and morality - communities - children.. so multiple fronts that require rescue first.. then triage, then some sort of healing. Its a daunting challenge right now.. and we need exemplars to lead the way.
You're right, sal. The victims will be multiple. And they will cover generations -- if we have that much time.
An otherwise good article by Alan Freeman ruined by "both siderist" false equivalence. The wind turbines Ford is cancelling are already built and ready to go; construction on the cancelled gas plants hadn't even started. Only the PCs are in favour of scrapping the wind turbines; all 3 parties supported blocking the gas plants. And while the estimated cost of cancelling the wind farm is $100 million, that's Ford's estimate. You can bet WPD AG will be asking for a lot more.
A much better comparison is Mike Harris' killing of the Eglinton West Line, which saw contractors fill in the tunnel they'd already dug. That fiasco set back Toronto's transit infrastructure by decades, just as shutting down the wind farm will slow our inevitable transition away from fossil fuels. It's shortsighted money- wasting at best.
Cap
Short sighted is the key phrase, Cap. The Fordians -- like the Harrisites -- are and were looking backwards.
If you go to Garth Turners blog "the greater fool" on Saturday there was a post on financial literacy that explains clearly in a round about way how so many people get suckered by con men. Two thirds of the way down is a link to the six question survey you can do yourself. The post, doing the test and reading some of the comments of others who did are worth half an hour of time. (sorry I don't knowhow to add a link to these comment thingys)
Thanks, bill. I'm sure readers can find their way to the blog. As I recall, Garth had a bitter battle with earlier political con men.
Populism, like nationalism, has gotten a bad rap. That's because we are only seeing negative populism and negative nationalism in play today. Professor Paul Taggart on populism:
"I’m not sure we should apply labels such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to populism. I personally don’t think populism is inherently a bad thing. I think it attaches to different sets of ideas, some of which are very bad (in my opinion), but there’s nothing to stop populism attaching itself to ideas that I think are good."
Nationalism can likewise be positive or negative. Look at how nationalistic we became in 1967. That was totally positive. It was about coming together as a populace and what we had built in that first century as a nation. There was no xenophobia to it, no fear and paranoia-fueled "them" versus "us."
I used to associate populism with progressivism, Mound. In my mind, it was a powerful and legitimate response to the First Guilded Age. But in the Second Guilded Age, populism has been hi-jacked by autocrats. They are the polar opposite of what I call legitimate populists. Doug Ford's campaign slogan was "For the People."
But it's clear he doesn't take his direction from "the people."
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