Harper rejects stimulus to deal with Canada's 'downturn'

The only problem with infrastructure spending is that it takes time to ramp up. But people have been saying for some time now, this is the time to borrow for badly needed infrastructure.

As far as hiking taxes on business, taxes have been very low for a long time now, and business has still not invested - they were sitting on piles of cash even before the bottom dropped out on the oil price. If business won't invest, time for the government to do it for them.

Agreed but not with a Tory gov't. You'd see investments like the Port Mann where instead of $1 toll, some private company makes $5 collecting the $1. Where they give $1 billion to Telus for fibre optic and they end up with the market and you paid for it.
If we invest in it, we should own it.
I also have issues with like, you call the cops because you filmed a car with plates ABC-123 drive across your lawn, tear up the garden and run over the dog. You're told to fuck off because of "privacy issues" they won't tell you who it was.
Your computer calls and tells the gov't computer you're Acme Collection Agency and plate number ABC-123 parked in your lot. They send you the owner, address, phone number, his SIN, his mother's maiden name and whether he's circumcised or not in 3/10ths of a second.

Well, you can't have a deficit just before an election, it might affect their re-election.

It's extra important not to say pr do anything about the r-word, especially when that kind of talk landed the PM in trouble back in late 2008.

I disagree. Government has to deal with whatever the world economy throws at us. Ultimately the government has all the authority, and the PM is the leader. The buck stops there. The world will always present one problem or another, you'll never ever see everything nice and happy without problems. You can't constantly run debt.

The US financial melt-down of 2008 was dire. I can and will harp on the Conservatives for turning the surplus they inherited from the Liberals into deficit. According to the May 2006 budget, the first budget by Jim Flaherty, the "status quo" surplus for the 2005-2006 fiscal year was $17.4 billion. In that same budget he stated his intent to increase spending in order to reduce the surplus to $8.0 billion. Fiscal year end is March 31st, the election was January 23, and Conservative ministers were sworn-in February 6, 2006. So that means spending an additional $9.4 billion in the first two months alone. If you look at actual figures from subsequent budgets, spending for 2005-2006 ended up $13.9 billion more than Ralph Goodale had budgeted for that year. However, Canadians worked harder, earned more money, and paid more in taxes than expected. The result was $13.2 billion. But Conservatives continued to increase spending until they drove us into deficit.

The Liberal budget of March 2005 including spending projections for several years. The first column is the Liberal budget, the second column is actual spending under Conservatives. Third column is the difference, how much Conservatives increased spending.

Spending for fiscal year: (in $Billions)
2005-06: 161.3 175.2 = 13.9
2006-07: 169.5 188.3 = 18.8
2007-08: 177.9 199.5 = 21.6
2008-09: 185.8 207.9 = 22.1
2009-10: 194.5 244.8 = 50.3

That's the last year from the Liberal budget. The big jump in spending was after the American melt-down, but Conseravites increased spending significantly before that, starting the day they were elected. And on March 17, 2011, the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with a report stating on that day the debt equalled it's previous all-time high. So the Conservatives un-did all the hard work by the Chr�tien-Martin Liberals. That report also stated the number of individuals in the federal civil service increased by 14% over what it was on election day 2006.

The next years are beyond the Liberal budget, but here they are:
2010-2011: 239.6
2011-2012: 244.0
2012-2013: 246.4
2013-2014: 248.6
2014-2015: 254.6 (estimated, actual spending not yet available)
2015-2016: 263.2 (estimated, we haven't finished this fiscal year yet)

Actual spending for 2009-10 was $83.5 billion more than the Liberals had budgeted for 2005-06. And spending for 2015-16 is $101.9 billion more than the Liberal budget for 2005-06.

Think that's unfair? Then add inflation for the Liberal 2005 budget. Then 2015-16 is $71.36 billion more.

Business very quickly becomes addicted to hand-outs from the government. We don't want to keep personal taxes high just to subsidize corporations. And we don't want to run deficits until we're on the brink of bankruptcy, as Mulroney did from 1984-1993.

Maybe you'd prefer the Ontario provincial Libs paying billions to Korean companies for wind power that barely makes millions in electricity generation.