An insightful piece on Manitoba’s political crisis and the problem with sales taxes :see T.C.Norris on blogger.

My original home province of Manitoba is currently embroiled in considerable political controversy over a broken election promise not to increase the sales tax and the fate of its NDP Premier Greg Selinger . As T.C. Norris aka Paul Barber points out its a big mistake in politics to promise not to increase taxes and then break your promise even if you say it only once during an election campaign. Premier Greg Selinger has made that mistake and now appears to be paying the price for it in terms of a decline in party poll numbers and a mass resignation of five members of his cabinet. The NDP has been the government of Manitoba for more than a decade and its been a popular competent government. But it appears to be in serious trouble these days. On the other hand the Conservative opposition has no honest answers when it comes to explaining how it will pay for necessary flood protection infrastructure if it rolls back the sales tax increase which it is promising to do. Once again if we had a program for infrastructure finance backed by the Bank of Canada there would be more sensible options. In any case have a read of Paul Barber’s post . It is excellent.

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About haroldchorneyeconomist

I am Professor of political economy at Concordia university in Montréal, Québec, Canada. I received my B.A.Hons (econ.&poli sci) from the University of Manitoba. I also completed my M.A. degree in economics there. Went on to spend two years at the London School of Economics as a Ph.D. student in economics and then completed my Ph.D. in political economy at the University of Toronto. Was named a John W.Dafoe fellow, a CMHC fellow and a Canada Council fellow. I also was named a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1968 after completing my first class honours undergraduate degree. Worked as an economist in the area of education, labour economics and as the senior economist with the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation for the Government of Manitoba from 1972 to 1978. I also have worked as an economic consultant for MDT socio-economic consultants and have been consulted on urban planning, health policy, linguistic duality and public sector finance questions by the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,the cities of Regina and Saskatoon, Ontario and the Federal government of Canada. I have also been consulted by senior leaders of the British Labour party, MPs from the Progressive Conservative party, the Liberal party and the New Democrats on economic policy questions. Members of the Government of France under the Presidency of Francois Mitterand discussed my work on public sector deficits. I have also run for elected office at the municipal level. I first began to write about quantitative easing as a useful policy option during the early 1980s.
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