Liberal spending promises shouldn’t fool anybody
My Conservative friends have perceived ever-widening faultlines in Liberal Leader Paul Martin’s con game to sway naive Alberta voters.
Yes, regrettably a handful of naive voters remains even in our province.
These Conservative friends are stalwart individuals such as MPs Lee Richardson, Jim Prentice, Jason Kenney, Deepak Obhrai, Art Hanger, Rob Anders and Diane Ablonczy.
Time served and proven, every one.
Not like their untested opponents, who maintain a strange messiah-like faith in their dubious federal leader.
Faultline A: If the Liberals had so much money to spend in the week before they lost a confidence vote in the House of Commons that they could come up with plan to blow $20 billion on everything from defence to Native affairs, and from arts and culture to labour and science, why wasn’t this money available before they found they had to face voters?
We’re now getting promises out of the blue on projects that could have been put firmly into place months ago if the Liberals were sincere.
Recall what I said in “Grit-free zone” (Dec. 11), Liberal promises are broken promises.
If Martin and his cohorts should actually be re-elected on Jan. 23, these promises will likely disappear into thin air as did Martin’s GST pledge in 1993.
Fautline B: The Liberal pledges generally involve spending taxpayers’ money on projects the Grits hold dear to their own hearts, but are not necessarily dear to voters’ needs.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s pledges—which unlike Martin’s are believable—centreing around giving the taxpayers’ money back to the taxpayers.
The cut in the GST from 7% to 5%, the annual “day-care” allowance of $1,200 for every child under six, small business incentives, and hiking seniors earnings exemption to $2,500 below a clawback kicks in.
These aren’t the only tax reductions—or tax rebates—Harper’s team has promised, but they point to the party’s general thrust.
It is that individual men and women can better spend their own money than can some Liberal bureaucrat in Ottawa.
That’s why more Conservative tax cuts are to come.
It’s true, Martin has also announced a rather nebulous $30 billion phased-in personal tax cut.
But why now?
With federal coffers overflowing, because Canadians have been overtaxed drastically since 1993, why do we have to wait until the Liberals are sweating to hear of a long overdue personal tax cut?
Why did we not receive tax cuts in past years when the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin duo were spending wildly on programs and projects from which only a small group individuals would benefit?
And, as with the infamous Chretien/Martin GST pledge, might this fabled $30-billion tax cut disappear, too, after the votes are counted.
After all, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale repeatedly told us—as did his predecessor—there was no room for tax cuts.
This year, Ottawa will collect more than $200 billion in taxes, yet until the election call, Goodale kept lowballing the annual surpluses, and moaning about tight finances.
Let’s be suspicious: No room for tax cuts—only spending—before an election call.
Room for tax cuts and—spending—after an election call.
Statistics Canada estimates the average disposable income of Canadians is just two-thirds that of our American cousins.
That’s mainly because of sky-high taxes.
It also means we all have two-thirds less economic freedom than the average American and two-thirds less opportunity to run our lives the way we want and follow our dreams.
Instead, the Liberals pillage our pockets and spend our money on their own personal faddish whims, and on unproductive programs that drag our economy down.
Just how dumb do Liberal strategists think we are?
Obviously, very dumb.
Which begs the question and faultline C: Why would any intelligent voter cast a ballot for a bunch of individuals who think we’re dumb?
The bottom line is really this: Do we want the disgraced Liberals to decide how our money will be spent?
Or do we want to let the Conservatives give it back to us so we can spend it ourselves on whatever we want?
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