• turnip@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    Is unfunded spending not future austerity?

    Liberals seem to me to be the most reckless, increasing spending while not raising taxes. They already removed the capital gains tax, and we now spend more on interest than on health transfers, meanwhile we have a doctor shortage.

    They just let the future to pay it off, then we suffer like under Chretien.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      No, unfunded spending isn’t future austerity. It could be in some cases, but it rarely is. In fact unfunded spending could mean future prosperity. For example building high speed rail or doing R&D for vaccines. We should spend the money for both today as both produce much more in the future than what’s spent. Austerity is usually ideologically driven, not by necessity. We’ve understood this since the Great Depression and we’ve battle tested the Keynes approach. The austerity periodically practiced since the 70s-80s required convincing a lot of people to believe in the free market fundamentalism preached by neoliberalism. It’s time to relearn what we knew before that.

      We need to tax the rich, not to fund our government, but to decrease the drastic power they have over our economy, the state and our lives.

      • turnip@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        Our per capita GDP is basically unchanged since Liberals took over, as the US did very well. So clearly we didn’t build infrastructure with the money which is my problem with the Liberals.

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          6 days ago

          100%. However Carney has come out and said in clear terms this is going to change in concrete ways. Also I liked something he mentioned in a presser the other day - they’ll be getting rid of external consultants and contractors (often large companies) as well as looking at procurement. I read this as curbing public money from going into the Accentures of the world as well as reducing how much we pay service providers like Azure. I suspect curbing dollars going to US companies would also be a priority.