Another Stimulus?

With more fear with the stock market some people in the U.S have been asking for another stimulus or spending package. Although putting money into the economy will create jobs the U.S can't afford it! Debt to GDP ratio is at 98%. The U.S doesn't have much wiggle room right now to lower taxes or to increase spending without paying for it. The U.S needs to reduce spending and raise taxes in order to lower the deficit. If the U.S doesn't reduce the deficit then it can face future downgrades, and will increase the interest of the debt. the Interest on the debt this year for the U.S is 200 billion and growing. With more downgrade and more stimulus that number will get bigger and force future cuts to be more sever and taxes to be raised more heavily in order to balance the budget. In 2020 under current projections the Interest on the debt will explode and be more expensive than the military, medicaid and medicare, and almost the exact same as social security. Another stimulus will make things harder in the future. The first stimulus wasn't all good either their was not enough spending on infrastructure and construction, and most of all it wasn't planned to be paid for. The Stimulus did create jobs and things would have been worse without it, but the U.S has no money or room to take any more cash for another stimulus. The U.S should invest in infrastructure and should extend the unemployment benefits , but this time they should pay for it. They need to have a plan that will eliminate the deficit all together within 7-8 years, and then if they want to spend any more they should have a new tax or cut to pay for the new spending. Stimulus season is over! The U.S made over 200,000 jobs last month in the recession they lost 700,000 a month in 2009 a stimulus made sense now not only is the U.S making jobs, but making another stimulus will make the deficit hard to handle .This May be an economic slowdown and the U.S might not employ to many people this month, but they are moving (slowly) in the right direction. the U.S may have to deal with sluggish employment for a while if they want to avoid being Greece!

Dion Is Right!

Stephane Dion the former Liberal leader for two years, and supported the Carbon tax has put the whole Turmel affair in perspective. He raised a few question that I found absolutely brilliant. He made it clear that a leader can change their  political stripes, but the fact that Turmel tried to hide something that happened so recently isn't transparent.

During and after the last campaign, Turmel was asked repeatedly about the support she had given Bloc candidates when she was a union leader. At that time she was presented with an opportunity to reveal her past membership in the Bloc, and her ongoing membership in Québec Solidaire. But she did not. That information only became public as a result of a reporter’s investigation, and that is completely unacceptable.

 Another thing Dion raised was Turmel's Explanation. She claimed that the only reason she became a member of the party that wanted to separate Quebec was, because she wanted to support her friend, but just because your friend is in a different party you don't have to be a card carrying member or for that matter vote for them. The Libertarian on the Blog is my friend, but  I am not joining the Libertarian party for him nor do I expect for him to come to the Liberal party, because he is my friend. Dion and me both agree that the NDP have to be more transparent. And I think that Turmel should decide now on whether she wants to stay a member of Quebec Solidaire or not.

 The NDP is now left with only one choice: it must opt for transparency. How many NDP MPs were, or still are, members of sovereignist parties? Will they remain so? How many would vote for independence if a referendum were held?

Read Dion's entire post here 

Replace the Champlain Bridge.

The Champlain Bridge is crumbling down. We need to replace the structure now! Before something bad happens. Because of problems with the bridge the city will lose productivity amounting 2 billion dollars. The Conservative party is moving slowly and not planning to do much.

 So far, federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel has only said the government is studying all options.

 Among the options are a new bridge — with a $1.3-billion price-tag — or a $1.9-billion tunnel.

20 billion in trade crosses the busiest bridge in Canada every day, and yes 1.3 billion is a lot of money, but not doing anything like the Conservatives isn't safe and make the city lose more money and jobs. We need to replace the bridge if we don't soon even if the bridge doesn't collapse the economy of Montreal will be in danger of collapsing. This bridge problem get's bigger every day. the longer we try to ignore it or place small band aids on it the more money we lose and the more problems we will face.

"The Champlain Bridge is really a key piece in the economic engine of the greater Montreal area," said Mai.

 Read more here

The Liberals are UP!

A new poll shows that the Conservatives are at 36.2, The Liberals at 27.0% and the NDP at 26.8%. We are now just over a month past the last election the NDP and the Liberals are now in a tie. And the Conservatives are now at their minority levels. Not that this matters for an election, but it's good to see our poll numbers be above the teens. We went up in every province in the country. In the Atlantic we are now just 5% behind the conservatives, but comfortably ahead  the NDP with a 12 point lead. In Quebec the NDP are still in the lead with 34%, but have declined 8% since their election day results. The Bloc are below their election lows, but have risen to 17%, but below the Conservatives and Liberals at low twenties. The NDP honeymoon in Quebec has declined, but  it isn't over yet. In Ontario we are about 7% higher than the NDP with 32%. That's great considering on election night we lost 2nd place to the NDP by just 0.3%. Harper's Conservatives are down from their election highs of 44% to now 38%. In the Prairies provinces we got 10% on election night, and now we are higher than the NDP slightly with 22% versus 20%. The Conservatives dropped over double digits to now 50% still dominating the prairies provinces. In BC we went from our 20% gap between the us and NDP to our now 5% gap. Which considering the margin of error can be considered a tie. We aren't winning yet and we still have 4 years to go, but it's nice to see our party doing better than we were doing last month. 

In June, the Liberals were at 22.3 per cent support nationally but have seen their support increase in every region of the country over the past month.

The pollster notes Liberal numbers always improve when they don’t have a permanent leader. For example, their numbers increased when Paul Martin announced his departure and again when Stephane Dion resigned.

  Read more here

BC Votes On HST!

The year old tax is now being subjected to a vote. Even though Stephen Harper help get some provinces on with the tax I fully support the HST. It helps companies as it eliminates the possibility of a product being taxed multiple times before being taxed one more time when bought, because now many products won't be taxed as much when the product goes down the construction line all companies will save money. This Money will help the companies be more competitive, hire more people and reduce prices! Simplifying the tax system is a good thing. According to a recent report BC will actually create over 100,000 jobs in the next ten years and BC will make over 590,000 Jobs over the next ten years. The HST will help Canada, and if BC votes against the HST which seems very likely the BC primer Christy Clark should do what is in the best interest of Canadians which is to keep the HST which will only help her province. I hope to see the results next week. I am not expecting the HST to be voted to be keept, but if it get's more than 30-35% I would be surprised considering the HST was not at all popular just 1 year ago.