Thursday, December 03, 2009

Harper a Neo-Con?

I recently sent the following letter to the Toronto Star in response to this column.

Dear Sir/Madam:

Eugene Lang and Philip DeMont argue Prime Minister Stephen Harper has an “overriding objective to cut taxes.” (“Big-spender Harper true to his neoconservative roots” November 30)

If that were true, of course, it would also mean the Prime Minister would have an equally overriding objective to refrain from deficit spending.

After all, big deficits today inevitably mean higher taxes tomorrow.

Yet, the Prime Minister has, thanks to his economic “stimulus package”, plunged the country into a sea of red ink.

In other words, the supposedly tax hating Prime Minister is actually imposing a "future tax" on Canadians.

Lang and DeMont call this “neo-conservatism.”

I call it bad economics.

4 comments:

potato said...

The article seems to imply that it's okay for the government to continue stealing your private property if it means balancing budgets. It used to be that the "neo"-con philosophy behind cutting taxes and reducing the size of government was respect for private property. Since the amended CPC constitution no longer includes private property rights as a guiding principle and, in fact, now supports "progressive social policy", it's pretty clear that the current incarnation of the CPC is far from "neo" and arguably not even conservative.

Anonymous said...

I call it being blackmailed by the three socialist parties and choosing the lesser evil of a Harper deficit over a coalition deficit guaranteed to be much bigger.
But that's just the reality of the situation and makes for poor posts.

cingl said...

I used to abide by the "lesser evil" rule to, until I realized that it was still "evil".

Anonymous said...

People for limited government don't have any party on their side in Ottawa, just a few individuals like Keith Martin (who I will be sure to vote for next election). Like I have been saying for a little while now Gerry, that his where you and others like you step in...