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I was chatting up a number of people during breaks and so on at a large meeting I was at. People who I know were not NDP voters in the last election, or the one before that, were talking about how they liked what they heard from Andrea.
And no I did not steer the discussion that way.
I have a strong sense that this is going to be the final straw that will start to bend the camel's back to breaking. Long overdue that people start examing the reality of Dalton McGuinty's Ontario not the empty and meaningless rhetoric.
Today is no different. Lots of talk about this tax merger. I posted in the other thread on "Andrea" that her comments on what the people of Ontario were looking for was not a "Tax Restructuring". That is so very true.
Today, I was talking with small businesses and they are not thrilled by this merger, regardless if some of its purpose was to make life easier for them.
There is every reason to think that Ontario will still be in deep shit come next year when this tax kicks in. That's because the Liberals haven't got a clue about how to deal with the economic meltdown. My logic for that train of thought is based upon a budget that has been formulated by people living in an ivory tower. In the meantime, manufacturing jobs will be leaving Ontario and I expect another 300000 jobs lost be next year.
On top of that, all the other areas of the economy that are catching a cold, because of the disconnect of the government from the economy.
Something funny is happening, almost a reversal from what I see.
Ontarians who "hated the ONDP" are actually starting to listen to what the Andrea and the ONDP have to say. And ironically, many have just as quickly began to tune out the Federal NDP.
This Ontario Budget is crap. However, there is a long ways to go before the public ever chooses to support the ONDP. But there is an opportunity for the ONDP to rebuild some long overdue credibilty issues.
A $14 Billion dollar deficit that saves nothing and bleeds the poor is a good start.
"What exactly is Horwath not doing that you think she should?"
First, I think all the New Democratic leadership from the provinces and the federal leadership should be agreeing on the major plan of attack, with as much cooperation as possible from interested groups on the left.
And that has to be tailored to what people already know. There's anger out there, along with fear and anxiety. Harper, McGinty etc., are exploiting it one way, it's high time someone tried exploiting it righteously.
Let's remember back to Danny Williams telling Abitibi to take a flying fuck at the moon. Everyone-- not just here-- thought he was a hero.
I think the NDP and other groups are sitting on a huge resource, and don't know it.
McGuinty more or less told wood industries in Northern Ontario the same thing with his highest in the country commercial power rates. Meanwhile the timber continues to be cut and shipped out of their communities to be processed elsewhere in the world. Northern Ontarians would rather have jobs though.
LOL!!!
There is a HUGE HUGE HUGE difference between Williams standing up for Newfoundland and McGuinty Selling out Ontario.
I heard Mulcair on CBC radio earlier this week, and he and others were talking about the idea of re-vamping the E.I. scheme. While he mentioned the 54 billion taken out of the fund, he said it was "transfered".
Really? Couldn't think of a stronger-- and more accurate-- word to describe what the Liberals did with 54 billion of worker's money?
Gee willikers.
I think Williams is a blowhard. He would screw them over first chance he got if oil revenues from offshore resources were ever handed to individual provinces. He's basically fomenting anti-federalism with his "me first" attitude toward the rest of Canada. It's the Danny Williams show, and the suckers tune in each week to hear him feign bad mouthing his federal cousins. He's a bad actor. And we can be sure the Harpers dont mind the Williams' side show at all. Harper is one of the most divisive federal leaders were ever had at the same time. Harper himself is so far in the pockets of energy companies that they have to pump air to him.
I suspect that McGuinty will ultimately go ahead with next year's increase in the minimum wage. He just wants to get the political credit for making the decision a second time. But, the fact that he's willing to so cavalierly speculate about breaking a promise just a day after that promise is included in the provincial budget tells you all that you need to know about him.
I don't watch as much news as I used to, nor perhaps as much as I should be, but even at that I do remember Andrea either on the radio or T.V. proclaiming loudly on this subject.
I'd love a link.
You can not fault any of the opposition party leaders for the very poor coverage provincial politics receives in Ontario. It is unlike any other province in my experience.
Actually she is making noise and it is being noted (the headline in The Star article to which I linked comes from her quote).
What Andrea will have to come up with (and I was one who voted in favour of her leadership) is a means of paying for the medical care and long term care that is withering in this province. And, please, it will not - cannot - simply be a recitation of that broken reed, "tax the rich".
With a spouse in long term care, one becomes very aware of the failures in the sector - and we're talking about needy old-timers here.
Also - and this question is for Bookish Agrarian (or anyone with links to farm country) - can Andrea propose something to end the alienation of country and city? Does the common plight of marginalized folk in economic crisis present an opportunity for New Democrats?
Quite frankly, I don't know where the Liberals could have turned if they hadn't done this. And if it is not an attack on the working poor, and if it does encourage business to grow here and to move here, criticism will indeed be a hard sell without a supporting media.
Hello George
I know from personal experience how hard that can be and my heart goes out to you.
I don't see much tax the rich sentiment in the NDP (at least in the great bulk of members) What does need to happen though is targeted investment through our tax system. Cutting taxes for large corporations is an investment, a bad investment when done without a single string attached as McGuinty has done. It is the kind of decision one makes that matters and what it will accomplish.
That same 4 billion dollars could have been invested in things like long term care, child care and many other things. Those too would have had spin off job creation in the economy that would have improved the competative position of large employers. It's all about your choices. The McGuinty Liberals have made choices based on the very policies that got us into this mess. Listening to the same crowd that advised government to make the policies that got us into the mess. We have seen a series of tax burden shifting polices (and really that is what corporate tax cuts are unless you have growth to overcome the cuts, or make spending cuts) over the past couple of decades. It created a climate and house of cards that was ripe for toppling taking many modest means seniors and retirees nest egg with it. It was unforgivable and it is time to stop pussy footing around it.
Imposing a consumption tax, with a piddling little bribe that won't come close to correcting the amount taken out will not move our economy forward. It is regressive, bad economics and its time to call the damn spade a shovel and do some ass whacking with it.
As for the rural-urban split I and others are working on it ;-)
I think the answer to health funding is in your question, George Victor.
Long-term care and supported home care are far cheaper than hospital beds.
In the same way, preventative health care and nurse practiioners are cheaper than doctors.
The NDP should start discussing how measures like this will reduce health costs.
I have a belief as a pretty hardcore NDPer that we should work with what we got before we make any monetary reform. There are many things that we can do right now to decrease costs in health care without cutting services on the front lines. Item one for me would be axing the damn LHINs, put that money into home health care.
But as for Andrea and the media, I think she is doing everything right. Going town to town is the right way to start listening to the people, getting her name and face out there. Its very perfect for her as it also gets in local media coverages, where more people get to see her, and hear her, where politics resonates the most.... close to home.
SH:
"Long-term care and supported home care are far cheaper than hospital beds."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Right. But LTC homes have to be built and both services have to be staffed. And we are left with the underfunded public services from the Harris years (and his answer was to lower personal care to the residents and help private care corporations to build for-profit facilities). The personal support workers in those places earn far less and have few benefits by comparison with the non-profit PSWs.
The voters know this, but are not stampeding to right this outrageous wrong. They are also against raising the tax rate to pay for it.
I get letters like this one published about twice a year in the local rag:
"The Editor:
Gerry Martiniuk, MPP for all the Cambridges, has informed his constituents in a mailing that a “shocking lack of provincial funding”(Hansard), leaves long-term-care residents with inadequate care and LTC workers with inadequate pay. His position is unchallengeable.
Mr. Martiniuk pleads for the current government to “Give these facilities the resources they so desperately need.”(Hansard)
He should admit, however, that it was his government, more than a decade ago, that lowered the bar regarding the number of hours of attention for each resident, demanded by law.
As well, he has always promised lower taxes at election time - the fruits of which are now being realized in both long-term-care and acute care facilities. In California, where the tax revolt rot began in the late 1970s, all public services came close to shutdown last month as state coffers ran as dry as their water reservoirs. They were warned, but short-changing government (and public services) at tax time became fashionable.
The boomer generation may soon come to understand what “lower taxes” offerings at election time means for personal care in their “golden years.” It’s not something corrected by passionate (conscience driven?) appeals to provincial keepers of books now running with red ink in a very "troubled" economy."
The letters get no response from a population in denial that they will ever come to that decrepit state.
"I don't see much tax the rich sentiment in the NDP (at least in the great bulk of members) What does need to happen though is targeted investment through our tax system. Cutting taxes for large corporations is an investment, a bad investment when done without a single string attached as McGuinty has done. It is the kind of decision one makes that matters and what it will accomplish."
What the budget shows most of all is a delibrate choice to maintain the economic philosophy that has gotten us into this mess. Corporations aren't shutting down or laying off because their tax rate is too high. They are shutting down and laying off because no one is buying anything.
Lowering corporate tax and increasing regressive taxes to compensate is, yet again, government preforming the function of middle man in the theft of wealth from the people into the hands of a few.
It is, as I like to point out, exactly no different from the economic philosophy of what was called "The Family Compact" back in the 19th century.
So, let us drop from our usage the idea that government "doesn't get it" or "doesn't understand" or are just plain stupid.
They are very smart, very calculating.
The ONDP, and NDP's rhetoric should be tuned to this.
Called it!
That was my first thought as I was reading the Star on-line this morning.
TP:
"Lowering corporate tax and increasing regressive taxes to compensate is, yet again, government preforming the function of middle man in the theft of wealth from the people into the hands of a few."
------------------------------------------
The central fact brought forward by the Chicago School in the 1970s, which has allowed the neo-con to come to power until this moment of collapse, is the mobility of capital. If you do not play ball with all that loot in the hands of investors (large and small - some of it your own pitiful little attempt at life just before death) it will go elesewhere and leave you high and bloody dry.
Nobody ignores that with impunity. The would-be leaders of the New Democratic Party of Ontario all recognize that. It is about time to end the mid-2oth century rhetoric. WE are actively screwing ourselves with our own savings. ...Shakespeare's petard See Robert Reich's Supercapitalism for the methods we use against ourselves.:
"During the last few years, politics has worked perversely: taxes on the
wealthy have been cut, and so have programs directed at the poor. The reason
isn't difficult to explain. Many Americans-- especially those who have been
losing ground have given up on politics. As their incomes have shrunk,
they've lost confidence that the "system" will work in their interest. That
cynicism has generated a self-fulfilling prophesy. Politicians stop paying
attention to people who don't vote, who don't work the phone banks or walk
the precincts, who have opted out. And the political inattention seems to
justify the cynicism. Meanwhile, the top tier has experienced precisely the
opposite--a virtuous cycle in which campaign contributions have attracted
the rapt attention of politicians, the attention has elicited even more
money, which in turn has given the top tier even greater influence.: Robert Reich
- Former Secretary of Labor"
We've got to take back control of the capital, invest in co-operatives, localize.
This might be true if our corporate tax levels were high relative to competing jurisdictions - but Ontario's tax levels are now heading 15 points lower than the US States that border us, not to mention lower than Manitoba,
lower than Quebec,
lower than China,
lower than Brazil,
lower than India,
lower than France,
lower than Japan,
lower than the UK,
lower than Italy
lower than Germany.
So, am I worried that our taxes will be too high? No I am fucking not.
Yep, those Chicago boys (Klein) still have us by the short one eh, SH?That's what Reich is warning us about. We should resist. Get out there and fight. And we should create public places with those taxes. Right? Not just stand by while the neo-con remnant suckers the electorate yet again, and again, into voting for lower taxes?
Or perhaps I didn't get your point?
(And were those personal or corporate tax rates?)
Those are corporate tax rates. I think.
I think the argument is simply that corporate tax rates are A factor in managing the economy but they're not the ONLY factor and since we're already competitive in corporate tax rates maybe we should focus on being competitive in terms of funding education, infrastructure, etc.
Instead of leading the race to the bottom on corporate taxes.
Pass it on...The NDP has the balance power...they can stop this...call or email right now to save Ontario:
www.ondpcaucus.com/yoursay/
or by telephone
at 1-855-ONT-BDGT (668-2348).