Raise the Hammer

A.S.O.T.T., I go back to the idea of comparing our economy to a person wanting to get stronger and healthier. How best to do that? Well, one way is to hire a personal trainer who forces us to run hills, lift heavy objects and otherwise causes us to suffer physical discomfort. If the personal trainer is tough and doesn't let us quit, we end up with a healthier, stronger body.

If Stephen Harper was Canada's personal trainer, he would be the kind that reduced the amount of weight we lifted, shortened the distance we run and he would also buy us junk food. In other words, he would try to make us as happy as possible. What would that get us? Excess fat, poor endurance and no forward progress towards our goals of getting in better shape.

In contrast, a politician that is willing to tax the private sector at high rates, take ownership of large pieces of the economy, pay off government debt and otherwise place lots of demands on the private sector, will end up making the economy stronger. It is not that the government is more efficient than business, it's not, it's that without the government providing stress on the private sector, it has little reason to adapt and get stronger.

So whenever you hear a politician tell the people that we need to reduce taxes, think about what that means.

If the private sector needs the government to make life easier for it, that is a sign that is already weak and out of shape. That's what Stephen Harper has done with corporate tax cuts, the GST reduction and his accumulation of government debt. All of these things are tailored to make life easier for businesses and individuals, but when you do that, you also create weakness.

This has been Stephen Harper's guiding principle so far, making life easier for the private sector and the result is an economy that has very little strength. If P.M. Harper decides to get tough on the private sector, that's when the economy will really start to grow stronger and at that point in time, he would likely get a majority government.

Keep in mind that after WWII, Canada had much higher tax rates than today, lower levels of spending on health and education, higher levels of military spending, decreasing debt levels, yet the economy was extremely strong.

Since that time, anti-government governments have cut tax rates, increased debt levels and social benefits, all things designed to make life easier for the private sector. The result is an economy that has slowed down every decade since 1950 and has now entered the worst period since the Great Depression.

China does not follow this economic model, where the private sector is catered to and the result is economic strength. Unless Canada and the U.S. get real, the much tougher Chinese people will be the ones calling the shots. It's time to get serious about this, because having a world where a dictatorship is the most powerful country in the world does not bode well for peace and our way of life.

The time for enjoying our big welfare state is now over, it's time to get back to work.