Recent former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty passed away a few days ago.
When he died I thought, "He was such a nice man even though I disagreed with him on practically everything".
In the days since his passing, he has been canonized by Conservatives for his "steady hand" through the 2008 economic crisis.
He is being called a "slayer of deficits" even though he passed 8 consecutive deficit budgets totaling upwards of $160 billion in debt after 9 straight years of budget surpluses in Canada where Canadians saw their national debt fall to $450 billion.
It is now back to over $600 billion.
Give credit where credit is due, I say, but don't just invent a stellar career record that never existed.
Jim Flaherty was responsible for raising the retirement age from 65 to 67. He died at 64, which is no small irony.
Jim Flaherty was a John McCain type 6 years ago who didn't know the economy was tanking while it was tanking.
If his administration had been handed a majority government in 2006, their plan was to deregulate financial institutions just like America did, which would have left Canada in a much deeper hole.
Flaherty's greatest legacy was the creation of the RDSP, a retirement savings account for Canadians with disabilities. Although well-intentioned, just 81,000 out of Canada's nearly 4 million disabled have signed up for it because the arithmetic only favors those families who are well-off and have the means to invest $200/month for the maximum payout, starting at age 45.
Flaherty's son had a disability and he's been called a "champion for the disabled" even though he refused to raise the disability benefit (it hasn't been raised since before the Conservatives came into power in Canada).
Under Flaherty's budgets, an individual's cellphone/internet/cable providers and banking institution were awarded a huge tax cut handout of $7 for every $100 in profits. It has helped to create approximately $625 billion in what is called "Dead Cash", which is money that corporations got back in kickbacks that were supposed to be "Trickled Down" and invested in Canadian products, services, and most importantly, jobs. Instead, corporations have sat on the money, which every empirical study going back to the early 80's has shown to be the case when you give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. After all, they can only get so many haircuts and buy so many pairs of shoes.
Meanwhile, the common person saw nothing. An average person making $30k a year with the same tax cut would be seeing an extra $42 a week or $2,100/year. Every empirical study shows that that money would be reinvested into the economy.
Under Flaherty's tenure, Veterans Affairs was cut so that fat cats could be awarded government handouts.
Under Flaherty's tenure, billions were wasted on war planes that didn't work.
Jim Flaherty was the first Finance Minister in Canadian history to cut government to a great extent and STILL manage to raise the debt by 33%, leaving a burden on regular Canadians.
He may have been a nice man, but he will not be remembered for any policy achievement that helped ordinary people. It's just revisionist propaganda from a crowd that likes to pretend to own the mantra of "fiscal conservatism" while they took from the working poor and middle class and gave to the wealthiest.
And for that he must now answer to his creator.
R.I.P. Jim Flaherty, a fat cat bitch of the 1%.
When he died I thought, "He was such a nice man even though I disagreed with him on practically everything".
In the days since his passing, he has been canonized by Conservatives for his "steady hand" through the 2008 economic crisis.
He is being called a "slayer of deficits" even though he passed 8 consecutive deficit budgets totaling upwards of $160 billion in debt after 9 straight years of budget surpluses in Canada where Canadians saw their national debt fall to $450 billion.
It is now back to over $600 billion.
Give credit where credit is due, I say, but don't just invent a stellar career record that never existed.
Jim Flaherty was responsible for raising the retirement age from 65 to 67. He died at 64, which is no small irony.
Jim Flaherty was a John McCain type 6 years ago who didn't know the economy was tanking while it was tanking.
If his administration had been handed a majority government in 2006, their plan was to deregulate financial institutions just like America did, which would have left Canada in a much deeper hole.
Flaherty's greatest legacy was the creation of the RDSP, a retirement savings account for Canadians with disabilities. Although well-intentioned, just 81,000 out of Canada's nearly 4 million disabled have signed up for it because the arithmetic only favors those families who are well-off and have the means to invest $200/month for the maximum payout, starting at age 45.
Flaherty's son had a disability and he's been called a "champion for the disabled" even though he refused to raise the disability benefit (it hasn't been raised since before the Conservatives came into power in Canada).
Under Flaherty's budgets, an individual's cellphone/internet/cable providers and banking institution were awarded a huge tax cut handout of $7 for every $100 in profits. It has helped to create approximately $625 billion in what is called "Dead Cash", which is money that corporations got back in kickbacks that were supposed to be "Trickled Down" and invested in Canadian products, services, and most importantly, jobs. Instead, corporations have sat on the money, which every empirical study going back to the early 80's has shown to be the case when you give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. After all, they can only get so many haircuts and buy so many pairs of shoes.
Meanwhile, the common person saw nothing. An average person making $30k a year with the same tax cut would be seeing an extra $42 a week or $2,100/year. Every empirical study shows that that money would be reinvested into the economy.
Under Flaherty's tenure, Veterans Affairs was cut so that fat cats could be awarded government handouts.
Under Flaherty's tenure, billions were wasted on war planes that didn't work.
Jim Flaherty was the first Finance Minister in Canadian history to cut government to a great extent and STILL manage to raise the debt by 33%, leaving a burden on regular Canadians.
He may have been a nice man, but he will not be remembered for any policy achievement that helped ordinary people. It's just revisionist propaganda from a crowd that likes to pretend to own the mantra of "fiscal conservatism" while they took from the working poor and middle class and gave to the wealthiest.
And for that he must now answer to his creator.
R.I.P. Jim Flaherty, a fat cat bitch of the 1%.
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(But I don't know him either).
