Confidence vote on Wednesday: Will the government fall?

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Whereas I would appreciate the chance to beat some sense into anyone with a secure well-paying job who is selfish enough to ask for a tax cut for themselves at this point in history.

I'm in the middleclass and a tax cut that I would actually feel and be able to use to pay down debt and save some RSPs isn't going to happen. They aren't going to give me a couple hundred extra every pay cheque. So the only reason to offer me a tax cut is for optics. Don't bother. I'd rather things stay the same.

And I can't say that even if they offered me a tax cut I'd really notice that in all good conscience I could be happy about it. Times are tough and other people need that money and I don't see anyone offering to step up and pay more taxes to make up what would surely be a short fall.

I for one hope the Liberals are power hungery enough to take Harper out. I can live with Iggy and his coalition I can't trust harper and his tax cuts.

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I think the best thing to do would be to have another election. Iggy wasn't even voted into the position that he holds, Layton is back to base figures for the NDP and the Bloc is a regional party, one that can not be said to represent Canada.

We don't vote for the PM. People may delude themselves into thinking they do because of the influence our neighbours have on our media and view of our political system but that's just not the case. And when you add up the actually bodies that voted for the other parties combined it surpasses those that voted for the Conservatives. So please show me how the majority of citizens won't actually be represented for the first time in a long time. I am dying to hear it.

And how is dropping a truckload of money on an election a good idea fiscally right now? When we already have a mechanism to enact change without spending more of our money.

If they are going to do tax cuts, I'd rather see them raise the personal exemption (like, maybe double it), and lower taxes for those below $25,000 or $30,000.  It's kind of ridiculous to lower taxes for people up to $80,000 a year.  If you're making 80 grand, you're no longer "middle class".  You're upper middle class and you don't need a tax cut.

I don't need one either, and I don't want one if it means killing services.  We need to expand social services and increase infrastructure spending during a recession to create jobs, not cut taxes. 

I read about studies about tax cuts in the usa, (when things got uncertain). It showed nearly all went into paying down mortgauges quicker. I think the figure was nearly 80% straight into paydown. So rather than a tax cut see it as money going directly to mortgauge paydown. Maybe a tax cut would stimulate the economy when things are rosy but definitely not now, it is just making it shrink faster! (Paying down your mortgauge does not even help the banks (screw them anyway) it  just shrinks their assets which means less money to lend.

The whole idea of tax cuts is to reduce the size and role of government in the longer term. The idea that this is for stimulation is hogwash. Remember the government does not believe in stimulating the economy- they think it is not necessary, it is not their role and that it can't be done by government in any case.

One of the big reasons Liberal voters stayed home during the last election was because they were totally demorallized after having watched their party knuckle under and support Harper so many times. That and their lack of enthusiasm for Dion and his plans.

Of course Iggy does not want to govern with the NDP. After all he is a very right wing Liberal (if one could call hiim a Liberal at all). He'd rather support Harper knowing full well that he won't actually impliment any of the good ideas he's put into this budget. Unfortunatley for Iggy that would leave him looking like a continuation of Dion and he can't have that. I believe Iggy may feel forced to vote this budget down and become PM to save the country in its time of greatest need. He'll need to have the NDP along for the ride, but he'll do everything he can to marginalize them and prevent them from having any influence or getting any credit.

All this talk about waiting to actually read the document may just be window-dressing so as not to appear to eager to take power. Idealogically, he'd like to let harper stay, but politically I think he has to take him down.

Ignatieff is way over his head. I get the sense he doesn't even really want to be there. The other thing is, do the Liberals want to wear this recession? It's much better to let the Tories fester in power while everyone's money is going down.

Then the Liberals can come in presently, clean up the nation's finances, and take credit for another Martinesque economic miracle.

 From where I was sitting in the visitor's gallery in the House of Commons, one thing is for certain. Pleas about the plight of the poor will get you absolutely nowhere in Ottawa.

As I mentioned in the other thread, Harper might not want to go into an election with this budget after all, given that his base appears to be a bit up in arms about it not being very Conservative (see the BloggingTories.ca aggregator).

I think the Liberals are not so much giving themselves time to decide what they think, but waiting to see how the second part of the post-budget news cycle plays itself out.  If they do play for time with amendments, it may be to give themselves a bit more time to see if any kind of opposition evolves.

The Liberals will live to regret letting Harper escape from this vice-grip. They had their hands around his neck and all they had to do was squeeze - and instead Iggy proves to be a coward who doesn't want to govern.

What a tool!  I predicted that once he took over the coalition was dead.  And now it officially is.

I was surprised at how incredibly ineffective he came off.  While he says that unemployment insurance needs to be improved, he refuses to propose ammendments.  He is worse than Dion.

Harper and Iggy might as well be members of the same party.  There's no difference between the two.  One is more hot on the social issues, the other might be more enthusiastic about torture, but there's little perceptible difference between the two.

Serves us right for making politics into some kind of spectator sport...

I like Jack Layton's comments about Ignatieff supporting Harper:

When the Liberals vote for Mr. Harper, with or without the figleaf of an amendment, they will be casting their forty-fifth straight vote in to keep Stephen Harper in office.

You can't do that, and pretend to be the alternative to Mister Harper.

So, to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who voted for Mr. Ignatieff’s party to replace Mr. Harper I say this: What you and I learned today is that you can't rely on Mr. Ignatieff to oppose Mr. Harper.

If you oppose Mr. Harper and you want to replace him, I urge you to support the New Democrats -- now and in the next election.

 http://www.ndp.ca/press/jack-layton-s-response-to-liberal-leader-michael-ignatieff-s-support-harper-budget

We don't even get the benefit of a period of political stability from this. The instability continues without relief because of Ignatieff's insistence on ongoing confidence votes. 

I see this as a battle of the weasels. The 'smart' weasel (Ignatieff) thinks he can out-manoeuver the vicious Alpha weasel. I think the 'smart' one has come out of this first-round unscathed, but no further ahead. And he somehow seems to be satisfied with this result.

This is a major tactical blunder on the part of Ignatieff and I predict he will come to regret it. Given the opportunity to maneuver, Harper will make Ignatieff (and the other opposition parties) pay for this. The NDP must make Ignatieff pay for this as well. The best thing to do is pay close attention to all the parties slamming this very flawed budget and very flawed approach. For example, Danny Williams called it an "economic atomic bomb" for NFLD & Lab, because it robs the province of $1.5 billion in equalisation payments, in other words the equivalent of $22 billion/year from the Ontario economy. To NFLD's 6 out of 7 (Liberal) MPs, you are about to totally betray your province! This is a direct partisan attempt to shove the province into have-not status. The NDP should be looking at ways to participate in the organisation of the push-back that certain to come from the upset people of NFLD when and if the NFLD Liberals vote for the budget.

Secondly, there will be a bunch of economists now that will savage the budget on many fronts. These quotes need to be collected and projected. The fact of the matter is that the budget is a highly political document designed for appearances rather than substance. The Liberals used to be caterwauling about how they didn't want the budget to put Canadians into permanent or structural deficit (different but related things), ergo no big tax cuts. That meme needs to be revived because these tax cuts do put the government into structural deficit, for the simple reason that they are not stimulus- they are permanent! By the government's own figures, this will keep Canada in deficit for likely six years- a balanced budget of $0.7 billion is a joke- assuming the economy makes the rapid recovery the government is hoping for.

 Then it will be all to easy to pick apart the funding for its stimulus or protecting the vulnerable value, because it avoids the latter and little can be perfect when it comes to the former.

P.S. How this helps the NDP:

1) The backlash to a coalition would have mostly come from Western Canada. The Liberal party is virtually non-existent in Western Canada and thus the NDP would have suffered the brunt of the backlash.

2) The Liberals are betraying their base, duh!

3) This allows the NDP to cast of the veneer of compromise that the coalition sough, e.g. they should now do their job condemning the war in Afghanistan and asking if corporate tax cuts are really the best value for Canadian's budgetary money. In so far as certain companies (mainly financial but also bad decisions in the auto sector) are responsible for the current economic crisis, why are they be getting big tax cuts?Is that fair?

Have the Cons responded to Iggy's 'report card' admendment yet?

Whatever.

Is there any surprise that the coalition is dead?  If there was one, how long would it take to put a budget together?  I have read that the liberals had prepared a shadow budget or whatever it's called but it doesn't sound like the NDP was involved.  Did the NDP craft a budget too?  If there was going to be a Coalition, I think the parties would have been behind the scenes getting one together.  Iggy has not been in communications with Layton, ergo, no agreement on the budget and no coalition.  The writing has been on the wall for weeks at least, if not ever since Iggy became interim leader of the libs.

What did the Liberals want that wasn't in there:  better changes to EI; more long-term plans; and more environmental impact.  anything else?

I bet the list of NDP's issues with the budget is longer.  Anyone know? 

Can these parties work together?   If not, a coalition would not work and would be less stable than the libs propping up the cons.

Bottom line (as much as many NDP'ers hate to admit it), Layton will never be PM.  Iggy might be one day.  What does he have to gain by working with the NDP?

Stockholm wrote:

I guarantee you that even after today's unconditional surrender by Ignatieff - there will still be those usual brain dead "think a million times coalition" types who will freak out if the NDP dares to say a single critical word about the Liberals. Those people will always find a way to excuse ANYTHING that the Liberals do - no matter how retrograde.

I can't wait to see Elizabeth May and her so-called green party start defending her Liberal friends even after they back a budget that by all accounts is not giving ONE RED CENT to any environmental cause.

On the contrary, the Conservatives want to strip off the environmental review regulations on infrastructure projects in the name of "fast-tracking."  That qualifies as worse than "no red cents" in my books.

ETA: As for the "think twice" crowd, fool me once shame on you, fool me 45 times, shame on me

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When the Liberals vote for Mr. Harper, with or without the figleaf of an amendment, they will be casting their forty-fifth straight vote in to keep Stephen Harper in office.

There is also a HUGE provision for the banking sector. I think 200 Billion, and it was completely not reported because people would be pissed.