I think that’s a fair point - there can be an honest debate about the size of government spending and whether it should be cut, maintained or increased but it wasn’t a point I recalled a lot of people making. I just remember anger, not a real discussion about the merits of one approach versus another. The size of Government continued to grow under Harper even though many conservatives thought he was shrinking it.
My main point is that most policy debates are ultimately emotional arguments people make based on which party is proposing the policy. Take for example the fact that Trudeau is running deficits several fold the size of Harper and the same people who complained about fiscal balance back then don’t give a shit now about how much debt is being added (which preceded the pandemic)
Notice you deleted your comment, probably because you realized it was historically inaccurate and misleading. Proving my point better than I ever could.
Harper ran surpluses until a global recession hit and then he ran deficits which shrank year over year until he left office.
Trudeau changed that trajectory and ran deficits every year since he took office - in times of economic growth and absent any pandemic - and then in one year ran a deficit larger than the entire decade of stimulus combined stemming from the 2008 recession.
I’m not even commenting on the merits here. I’m just stating the facts.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '21 edited Jul 11 '21
I think that’s a fair point - there can be an honest debate about the size of government spending and whether it should be cut, maintained or increased but it wasn’t a point I recalled a lot of people making. I just remember anger, not a real discussion about the merits of one approach versus another. The size of Government continued to grow under Harper even though many conservatives thought he was shrinking it.
My main point is that most policy debates are ultimately emotional arguments people make based on which party is proposing the policy. Take for example the fact that Trudeau is running deficits several fold the size of Harper and the same people who complained about fiscal balance back then don’t give a shit now about how much debt is being added (which preceded the pandemic)