Campaign memes I don't understand

1. The "Green Shift" is complicated and difficult to understand.

It's not. Seriously. How hard can it be to figure out? Carbon taxes up. Other taxes down. End of story. It's much easier to understand than the cap-and-trade models of the other two parties.

2. Stephen Harper is the most credible leader on economic issues.

Excuse me? Yes, he may have a post-graduate degree in the field, but it's not as though he's putting it to good use or anything. A non-economist Prime Minister who ignores the advice of his officials and cuts the GST is one thing. But a Prime Minister who presumably already understands why the GST shouldn't be cut - and then does it anyway - is quite another.

3. Federal Canadian politicians have anything useful to say about the ongoing financial crisis.

Journalists, if you really want to know how the meltdown on Wall Street affects Canada, give Mark Carney a call. He understands the problem, can speak intelligently on the issue, and the means to react appropriately are at his disposal. None of this is true of the politicians, so for pity's sake, please stop asking them to comment. And if they volunteer quotes, keep them to yourselves. The campaign is generating quite enough silliness on its own.

Comments

[Andrew F]

Wholeheartedly agree on your first two points, Stephen. That the green shift is always referred to in media as 'Dion's complex carbon tax scheme' or somesuch strikes me as subtle editorializing in informational pieces. No justification is given besides echoing previous media pronouncements. Any critical analysis of the competing plans reveals that the various cap and trade schemes are less understood and leave more questions to be answered.

[Manny, in Moncton]

The Green Shift plan is easy to understand? Great.

One simple question: since the income is, by design, expected to decrease with time but the expenses will not, is the plan doomed to bankruptcy?

[Rick]

Dion is not stupid, though he may appear so. He has a team supporting him. The Green Shift may be simple. The problem is that Dion and his team have done a very poor job of explaining the system to the average Joe/Jane. It may be true that a Cap'n Trade :-) is equally as complicated, but the Green Shift is presented as a platform. If Layton or Harper (sorry May, I just don't see your group as viable...yet) were selling a carbon fix, then you can bet we would want to know more than "Carbon taxes up. Other taxes down." Well, I want to know more. An answer to Manny's question would be a great place to start.

[lickedcat]

Why is Dion trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist? Are the liberals, NDP and Greens manufacturing a doomsday scenario to push through another tax to fund their social experiments.

No thanks, leave me alone, thanks Steve for lowering the GST, my consumption was up this year. Next year please lower my income taxes!!!

Talking about credible, you got "me too" Dion, slickster Jack, and for gawd sake Elizabeth May? you can't be serious.

[babooba]

How does someone like lickedcat end up on this blog? My grampa has better rants thant that.

[Somali States of America]

I'm wondering when Stephen Harper ever worked as an economist.

Have you known anyone who calls themselves an economist who doesn't have a phd in economics? (Stephen Harper may have not called himself an economist, but the media makes a habit of doing so.)

His interest in economics may only be to understand it to the point of being able to defend Conservative or NeoConservative economic theories in an (often friendly) political context. But he evidently didn't keep up with his studies, since, as far as I can tell, conservatives (as opposed to the neo kind), who live in a world where Climate Change is just a reality to deal with rather than part of a devious socialist plot, actually like defending carbon taxes, and generally as they defend taxes on things that otherwise introduce externalities, and wish to further remove taxes on income and investments. Harper doesn't seem to like discussing the idea of 'tax' itself, which is pretty self defeating for a politician, and an economist.

Harper seems favour straight government regulation in achieving "intensity" reductions, rather than make them cost something in terms of a tax, or a purchased credit (if considering cap and trade). http://www.conservative.ca/EN/4739/78192

It's rather juvenile that the media has so far let this issue slide away to irrelevance. (I like Peter Mansbridge's excuse: the CBC asked the public to ask which ideas should be discussed in this election. And discussing how to gear an economy to emit less carbon obviously didn't make the cut.)

Oh yes, Copenhagen 2009. I guess the cbc hasn't given their journalists 2009 calendars yet (maybe hedging their bets that Harper will just get rid of the CBC if he gets a majority ;-) ).