I've skimmed my way through a day's worth of television news and next I plan to skim the budget itself, so my wide thoughts on the budget will need to wait a little. I'm like the Senate with the sober second thought and my not really living in the area I'm supposed to represent.
In the mean time though, here's video of Michael Ignatieff scrumming with reporters this evening, following the budget speech:
And here's a few clips of Macleans' Andrew Coyne and the Toronto Star's Chantal Hebert reacting to the budget.
Coyne's body language just screams pissed-off, and so do his words. "The end of any kind of Conservative era in Canadian politics," says Coyne. "The end of an era....Thomas Mulcair could have written this budget." Ah, Andrew. I feel your pain, but I also think it's cute that, three years-in, you can still manage to be disappointed by Stephen Harper's ideological failings. Don't you ever change.
And Chantal, whom I don't always agree with, makes a great point on the "wack-a-mole" nature of this Conservative budget. "The government," said Hebert, "faced with a number of buttons to try to achieve something, decided...to push every single button and see what happens."
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Budget videos: Ignatieff's scrum, plus Coyne & Hebert
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6 comments:
On the CBC AtIssue panel, Coyne and Hebert went on to agree that this budget marks the death of conservatism and the end of Stephen Harper as an agent of change. Whether this budget passes or not, the Liberals have been handed a gift.
"Stephen Harpers ideological failings"
You can't possibly be suggesting that Coyne's disappointment in a "budget that the NDP could have wrote" (as he put it) is evidence of his far right ideology....
Good god,.. you sound like Goodale. (who by the way spent most of the day spouting vitriol at the budget interspersed with "we will look at it" I don't think he said anything good about anything.... So will he vote against it??? .... right,... he has no credibility)
Handed a gift how cimmetry?
It's possible that Tory voters might stay home and be pissed off. (and many of us are). But what makes you think that they might vote for a party that is at best the very left edge of conservatism? Even if the tories push that far left with budgets (successive budgets..sigh) they are still no further left than the liberals.
It doesn't gain the liberals votes.... it might even eat into some of the liberal votes. But the choice of most tory voters pissed off at a tory party moving left.... aren't going to cast their vote further left.
Best case for the liberals.. alot of tories stay home... or a redux of the reform split. (and most right wing voters remember how that turned out too)....
Someone quick calculate the average increase gdp-style of spending by a Harper gov't... how does it compare to trudeau's whole career? Or King's?
Harper may get a quick bounce from this, or he may be pillared by the Coyne-types (I already saw one Fraser Institute cyborg almost shaking his fist at the budget)... It remains to be seen if there is any benefit, especially if there's a tsunami of economic whup-ass coming our way.
cimmetry, the end of a change agent, sure, but I'm not sure about it being a gift. I suppose it depends on our ability to exploit it. But the change agent narrative, after three years of government, would be hard for Harper to pull off anyways, and "all politicians are the same" is a more likely public view. Which would at least mean a level playing-field, I guess. But if we can claim the responsible fiscal management highground somehow, paint the Cons as reckless, look to our own solid record, and show a better plan going forward, that would be good.
and as barcs said, pissed off ideological Conservatives have nowhere to go. They vote Con or stay home, unless they form Reform II. If there are any Red Tories left they might be poachable though.
barcs, what? I'm suggesting that the budget, and their other two, are evidence that Harper has abandoned the principles of small government fiscal conservatism, an ideology he supposedly espouses, and this is why Andrew is so sad.
Ah, sorry Jeff.
I assumed the other way... But I certainly agree with you and Coyne that this doesn't sit with conservative principles of small gov, fiscal conservative...etc
And ya, I am less than happy with it.
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