Why is it that Iffy and the Libs keep getting on the wrong side of the issues? He's against the corporate tax cuts that PM Harper and the Conservative government have implemented, is good for the economy and that most support. Even his Harvard buddy
President Barack Obama has seen the light and in his State of the Union speech last light talked about reducing the corporate tax rate in the US.
Since taking a pratfall at the midterm elections, Barack Obama has been making a show of moving closer to the middle ground of American politics. He’s stressed his willingness to compromise with Republican opponents, bit the bullet on demands for an extension of tax cuts, avoided opportunities to play to partisanship and generally made known that he’s not the left-wing kook he was portrayed as to great effect by his opponents.
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One assumes Obama is acting out of necessity, having found that bashing business produces short-term approval on the left but provides little in the way of electoral support or presidential job security. That message has yet to wend its way north to Liberal headquarters in Ottawa, though, where leader Michael Ignatieff appears intent on staking a role as Canada’s resident corporate scold, outflanking Jack Layton and the NDP.
Kelly McParland indicates that when you listen to Iffy you can almost hear Jack Layton speak and that Jack can easily make PM Harper's case for corporate tax cuts without the PM having to actually make it himself. Nice.
If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear Jack Layton complaining about rhetoric theft. The NDP leader can hardly open his mouth without talking about “hard-working Canadians” and the Conservatives’ passion for corporate Canada. Perhaps the Liberals view upping the ante to “hard working families” as original thinking. But business-bashing never did much for the NDP, which has trouble breaking through 18% in the polls, well back of the Liberals. And the NDP has been making its case for years, which suggests they actually believe it, while the Liberals have just arrived at the notion that corporate cuts are evil after spending a decade or so as their eager champion.
Should there be an election, Stephen Harper won’t even have to make his case for himself, because Mr. Layton can do it for him. Just last week the NDP helpfully issued a release reminding everyone that the Liberals of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin were big fans of corporate cuts. In fact, Mr. Martin only backed down on a planned reduction when Mr. Layton demanded it as a condition for helping the Liberals stay in office a few months longer. Martin vowed to reintroduce it if he won the next election, so the Conservatives are really just carrying out that promise on behalf of the Liberals.
If Iffy Waffle is going to campaign against corporate tax cuts that Liberals once supported and even started to implement when they were in office, fine. It'll just show the hypocrites that the Liberals are. A party that once was a party of the center makes you wonder. Are they trying to go further left of the NDP? Stephane Dion took the Liberals to the left
even he supported corporate tax cuts.
Update:
Rolling back corporate tax cuts would rock economy, Beatty warns
Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty is warning the opposition’s plans for corporate taxes would deliver a “blind side hit” to the economy, delivering the message on the same day federal cabinet ministers are fanning out across the country in defence of lower business taxes.
Memo to Liberals: You're three years too late on the corporate tax cut vote-David Akin
