Summary
With the currently economy in the ruins, the political parties have no problem pointing their fingers at the other for this disaster. With the federal election soon coming up, the tensions between the parties are stronger than ever. Liberal Leader, Michael Ignatieff, accused the Harper government of ruling the worst collapse of employment to record (300,000 in first 3 month of 2009). The Conservative government fought back. They pointed out that the Liberal party plans to increase taxes to repay the deficit caused by the economic stimulus programs created by the Tory government. The conservative party also points out that raising taxes kills jobs and is the opposite of what they want to do. Both parties are confident that they can do a better job of raising the nations economy than the other, it is hard to see which one is truly better.
Connections
In this chapter, we learned about the stabilization policy. The policy is to deal with many problems in the economy and also an unsteady economy. One of the approaches to a stabilization policy is called a fiscal policy. It is what the Conservative government is planning to do. The conservatives are planning to increase government spending to increase jobs and lessen the unemployment rate. They also plan to lower taxes to increase the countries GDP which would increase the countries demand for goods and services. The liberal has the opposite plan. They plan to increase taxes and cut government spending and use the money to pay off older debits. However, reducing government spending would lead to fewer jobs and higher unemployment rates. Both of these are examples of discretionary fiscal policy as they are changes in government spending and taxation for improvement of the economy.
Personal Reflection
I think both parties shouldn’t be blaming each other for the poor economy. The poor economy was bond to happen no matter who was in control of the country. For the Liberal to accuse the Conservative of having caused and allowed this poor economy was not right. I agree with the Conservatives way of trying to get the country out of the economic turmoil but it is hard to know if they would actually follow through on it. Since it is right before a federal election, the parties often start making empty promises. Also a fiscal policy takes a long time to influence the economy. So even if the Conservative has a good plan, it may be a little too late to apply it.http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090420/battle_lines_090420/20090420?hub=Politics
