How should the NDP address Canada's catapulting deficit and debt?

I thought it meant we were importing way more catapults than we were exporting.

:)

I think he was looking for an opposite to "plummeting".

Don't bring up skilled trades. They'll be demanding a separate ratification vote...

ETA: Yours was the worst groaner yet.

What an amusing thread, no groaners at all,  got a deep laugh from me. :D

"Y'ever tink tings are a bit outta wack?"

ya' think I never did?

Though I knew for sure when Life Styles of the Rich and Famous came out to re-enforce the indoctrinated and internalized myth that tells everyone they are princesses and princes, or at least capable of being so, as long as they follow the protestant work ethic, are lucky, or in some cases know "The Secret". ;)

Despite all the great ideas floating around....none of them will ever get off the ground till the media allows it. The ndp can come up with the greatest plan in history . If the right wing media decides to turn Layton into a clown then that's what Canadinas will believe. If they decide to make him the saviour that's what Canadians will believe. If an idea catchs on then the libs or cons will claim it..just watch.

Until the NDP gets it's own propaganda mass media in your face machine working they will allways be a number 3 or with the greens now a possible number 4 party despite the greatest ideas...the biggest heart...and the best people.

George Victor wrote:

Auto workers "building chip components for ships"?

Right.

But how would you employ the workers if you do not invest $ as well as get inventive?

Building chips ......for ships.

Sure you weren't busy in last fall's campaign?

 

I was just throwing that out as an example. A better idea would have been for the RCMP, OPP, the military and others to have held back on vehicle purchases until the recession. Then, when the recession hit, we'd have had a need for police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, military vehicles, etc, rather than a make-work bailout.

One idea I could see would be for the government to make up a list of immediate purchasing needs and future purchasing needs. When not in recession, we hold off on anything that can wait and just put them on the future purchasing needs list. Then, when recession comes, instead of having to bail out industries with make-work jobs, we'd actually have some legitimate needs to fulfil.

I remember reading somewhere years ago that Swden had such a scheme in place. When the clothing industry was doing OK the military held off on buying more uniforms if it could. And when the clothing industry was in recession, then the military made purchases not only to fill immediate needs but foreseeable future needs too. If the federal government had entered the recession with no department needing anything because it was all purchassed already, then that would show serious lack of forward planning. There should always be room left for legitimate counter-recessionary spending precisely to avoid make-work schemes.

Funny I always have sorta figured the best way to keep people from being poor is jobs.

Do nothing.  Let it collapse.  Look into who is lending the money and collecting the interest.  And, where is the non-existent interest money going to come from?

The NDP would do better by winning the next election.

The only vision that I've ever heard from Harper is that he would borrow about $480,000,000,000.00 and spend all of it on the Canadian military.

mmphosis wrote:

The only vision that I've ever heard from Harper is that he would borrow about $480,000,000,000.00 and spend all of it on the Canadian military.

Now that's a perfect example of make-work jobs, or job-creation as an end. The government should never engage in make-work schemes. Worse case scenario, if the government is really out of ideas on any valuable jobs it could create, then give the unemployed school vouchers so they can go back to school, study what they want, and maybe create their own jobs based on their own skills and interests, rather than the government dictating that one is to dig the hole and the other is to fill it in just to keep them busy. Job-creation ought never be about just keeping people busy, but addingvalue to the economy. In fact, make-work job scemes are an insult to the workers by keeping them busy producing something of little value just to keep them busy. And unfortunately, the military is often used as the ultimate make-work scheme.

Doug wrote:

Tommy_Paine wrote:

What value do we get from our taxes?  No one seems to ever look at that, and it seems to me this is the real question that needs addressing.

That takes us down a road some leftists are loath to go down. Improving productivity and responsiveness in the public sector is going to mean annoying some public sector unions because having rightly eschewed simplistic "solutions" like privatization, we still need to have an eye both on value for money and public satisfaction. More happily for the left, the same question needs to be asked of both spending and tax benefits for business. Those programs and tax breaks that aren't generating value (such as jobs or investment) for money need to be terminated.

You bring up some good points here. Many rightists assume no government spending is valueable, end of story. Many on the left, however, are a little more divided precisely in how to spend the money. I think if the NDP, the Green Party, or any other left-leaning party could come up with a plan for the next recession that would ensure a stimulous package to create jobs while at the same time ensuring that none of the jobs woould appear to the public to be make-work jobs, it might have a chance. One example I could see would be a list policy, whereby the government would draw up a list of future needs to be addressed come next recession. That way, when the recession hits, we would in fact have a genuine need to replace some old police cars or ambulancces or fire trucks, etc. thus eliminating the need for bailouts as part of a stimulous package the end rather than the means of which being to creae jobs. This would likely attract more votes from the left.

Alternatively, if the party really can't think of any valueable job to create, then give college vouchers to the unemployed so that they can further their education and then maybe create their own jobs later. But I think the impression of make-work jobs is what often kills votes for the left. The ony thing that baffles me though is how the Conservatives can win votes with the ultimate make-work scheme: excessive military spending.

I find it interesting that the arguments for the Tobin Tax are no different then the arguments for the HST, or GST. 
And obviously the Tobin Tax has worked when implemented in this fashion

Quote:

The Sterling Stamp Duty, as it became known would be set at a rate 200 times lower than Tobin had envisaged, so that it would not adversely affect currency markets and could still raise huge sums of money. The global currency market has since grown again to $3,200 billion a day in 2007, or £400,000 billion per annum with the trade in sterling, the fourth most traded currency in the world, worth £34,000 billion a year. [6] A sterling stamp duty set at 0.005% would therefore raise in the region of £2 billion a year. [7] The All Party Parliamentary Group for Debt, Aid and Trade published a report in November 2007 into financing for development in which it recommended that the UK government undertake rigorous research into the implementation of a 0.005% stamp duty on all sterling foreign exchange transactions, to provide additional revenue to help bridge the funding gap required to pay for the Millennium Development Goals. [8]

What do you mean by entering the world of externalities, of Tar Pits and environmental collapse, Fidel. Petro dollars and a currency pricing us out of jobs?  Go west young man.

Keep this discussion purely speculative, unrelated to events, please... theory's the thing.

That takes us down a road some leftists are loath to go down. Improving productivity and responsiveness in the public sector is going to mean annoying some public sector unions because having rightly eschewed simplistic "solutions" like privatization, we still need to have an eye both on value for money and public satisfaction.

That just goes to show the mindset.  Automatically, my statement is read as meaning that the overworked and underpaid front line clerks are to be targeted as not providing value.

This even in the wake of Ontario's E Health scandle.

This despite the news today that privatized CN rail made a good number of deffective train wheels (trucks) that have been implicated in derailments,  but are now untraceable.  Which I find hard to believe-- more likely it's just inconvenient for CN to round them up, test or scrap them and make new ones.  And the government goes along.

But it's ingrained in our thinking that the private sector automatically delivers better value.

This despite the fact most people deal with telecomunication companies, and know very well that the common art of business today is to deliver the least value for the most money.

Back to basics again, the vast majority of Canadians cannot expect value from their taxes, when the point of tax collection is to take your money and distribute it to the friends and family of those in power first and foremost, and the nation second.

Unfortunately, value isn't akin to infinities in physics which can be neatly swept under Feynman's carpet. 

Value exists.

And, it is subjective.  And, it is far from ignored. 

Right now, value is being determined subjectively, by a select few. 

Well, Stephen is right in that it is subjective, and that's what I've been talking about all along.  And, he's right that if you sat down and tried to order things-- who gets paid what, who can charge this price-- that indeed would be madness.

But government, whether it likes it or not is heavily involved in this game.  When it chooses to de regulate, or not enforce consumer protection laws, or zoom the usury rate up to 66%, it is in fact determining value.

And, surprise surprise, value that's skewed to the interests of themselves and their friends.  Or fellow gang members.  Remember, economics is all word play.

Value is subjective, but it's real.  It's time the NDP had a platform that adjusted value along more populist lines.

I think we cross posted, but I think my post above does just that.

Government has oportunity to put money in the pockets of consumers by other means that bail outs or E.I.  They can do it in ways that don't cost the government a penny.    A more practicle way of stimulating the economy, which should have a positive effect on the governments negative numbers.

actually E.I.'s a bad example, it's not even government money but a deffered wage.  But anyway.

My approach is to make use of what economics can tell us about how we can generate tax revenues with impoverishing us all (there are any number of examples of countries that failed this test), and then redistribute it.  ( italics mine)

Fruedian typo?

*snerk*

It isn't that cut and dry. We need to make an appealing case that our policies and values truly represent the interests of the working. The Liberals don't. They represent corporate interests just like Harper and his band of neocons.

Stephen Gordon wrote:

George Victor wrote:

And just which political party are you proposing to immolate by its adding a couple of points back on the GST Stephen?

I really don't care. All successful social democracies have eventually figured out that high consumption taxes (GST/VAT) are the most effective way of generating large amounts of tax revenues.

But what do you think of social democracies like Norway?  Theyve not only proven  that carbon taxes dont work to curb CO2 emissions after a ten plus year-long experiment in taxing carbon, theyve also demonstrated that energy nationalism works to build one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. As you can tell I, too,  have a soft spot for Nordic social democracies, while at the same time I am capable of acknowledging their excellent failed adventure with taxing carbon in what is a fossil fuel-exporting social democracy of Norway.

Quote:

The fact that the NDP has spent a generation denouncing the GST means that a generation has been lost; the federal government is now smaller (as a share of GDP) than it was in Diefenbacker's day. And probably another generation will be lost trying to piece together political support for a strategy to reverse the trend to ever-smaller governments.

Is it the NDP's fault that very little of the GST has been plowed back into anything useful in this country? Because since the neoliberal trade deals were signed, our stooges havent expanded or created any national public services except for an expensive gun registry and now US style military expansion worth some half a trillion dollars in public spending by 2020.  I think we have think in terms of why Canada's social democrats would oppose tax grabs by either of the two old line parties.

Consumption taxes work in the Nordic social democracies because social democrats governing or in strong political opposition in those countries make them work. Canada has all kinds of possibilities for taxation that just dont exist in resource poor Nordic countries, again with the exception of oil exporting socialist Norway. And I mention oil-exporting socialist Norway because bananada is also an energy-exporting country in several more ways that tiny Norway. Canada is well below OECD average for overall federal tax take as a percentage of GDP. Bags of room for generating the tax revenues which have been slashed and pared to the bone since at least 1995. Consumption taxes arent nearly the only thing Canada doesnt have in common with Nordic social democracies. Canada has oodles of room on taxation. Canadians are not burdened with excess taxes if we want to compare the frozen Puerto Rico with European and Scandinavian social democracies that are more economically competitive than Bana... I mean, Canada.

Because with our NAFTA saddlebags, our two old line parties are reluctant to expand public services here and create the kind of macroeconomic conditions that exist in Nordic countries and contributing to overall economic competitiveness in those countries. Canadians have been taught well by the two old line parties not to expect better health care, and not to expect fuller employment policies or generous EI and welfare benefits or job training programs. We've been conditioned not to expect very much for our tax dollars compared to voters living in Nordic social democracies. What youre asking the NDP campaign for - taxing the poor to pay the poor - would probably go over like screen doors in a submarine with Canadians who are not enjoying personal savings rates of nil next to nothing and are indebted on average to credit cardc ompanies, home mortgages, sky-high rents, student loan debt sentences etc. Campaigning for higher taxes on the poor in general is not a good idea for any political party. Our first-past-the-post electoral system demands that political parties say only as much as necessary about actual policy in order to win a phony majority. And I'm sad to say it, but that's just the way it is in Banana... I mean, Canada.

A new private-sector calculation shows the federal government cannot meet its budget balancing timetable without raising taxes, and will require eight years to return to surplus. Toronto-based Dale Orr Economic Insight says in a revised analysis released Friday that Ottawa is still on track to add about $160 billion to the national debt, which will rise to about $620 billion in the 2016-17 financial year.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/691126
This illustrates the situation that the next federal government will be in, with taxes needing or increase and/or spending cut.

THE question in this thread is "How should the NDP address Canada's catapaulting deficit and debt"?

The serious person who presented this thread got as far as saying:

"I think the NDP should consider combining taking a serious run at Harper's skyrocketing deficit and debt, and by calling for a moratorium on all defense department contracts. These are not green jobs." He and our resident economist said New Democrats should raise taxes. At least "take a serious run" at the deficit could mean taxation.

The suggestion that that would destroy the party's chances in a dumbed-down electoral climate of 'devil take the hindmost" was discarded, and the formula employed by the deficit-destroying Liberals, slashing programs, will, we know, be employed by the Cons on gaining a majority.

I think Canada should "address" the question by pointing out that New Democrats have been able to both balance budgets and maintain - even expand - social programs. While we work out how to stop the ice from melting.

George Victor wrote:

The suggestion that that would destroy the party's chances in a dumbed-down electoral climate of 'devil take the hindmost" was discarded, and the formula employed by the deficit-destroying Liberals, slashing programs, will, we know, be employed by the Cons on gaining a majority.

I think Canada should "address" the question by pointing out that New Democrats have been able to both balance budgets and maintain - even expand - social programs. While we work out how to stop the ice from melting.

Yes, and when the time comes the NDP could rail pretty hard on both parties for their fiscally Frankenstein-ish ways. Would it swing votes our way? Maybe, but that's where the obsolete electoral system comes into play for the old line parties and their dumbed-down support base who vote old line party come hell or high water.  The NDP has campaigned on anti-neoliberal platform for the last 35 years, and I think it's beginning to appeal to some Canadians who are listening today. But this bad electoral system has made non-voters of somewhere around half of eligible voters in Canada. The US is even worse with election turnouts in America now lower than capitalist India's.

And about your most excellent mention of the Tobin tax before in this thread, there is growing support for it in Britain and Germany and some fairly influential countries where politicians are actually thinking on the job:

[url=http://www.lindamcquaig.com/Columns/ViewColumn.cfm?REF=118]Flaherty nixes Tobin tax[/url] Harperites obstruct G7 push for tax on financial speculation.  Linda McQuaig

Our vicious toadies really do have a role to play as G7 leaders, even if Canada's doesn't seem to be an actual gang of seven economy.

I'll edit this as what I wrote belongs in a new thread not this one..