Cross-posted at Immizen.com with links to sources.
A July 24th Forbes article that a Canadian friend just sent me, makes a very funny claim: that President Obama doesn't want Americans to know that Canada is outperforming the U.S. on every economic front by implementing policies that US Republicans say they’d like to implement. This is based on an interview with Tony Clement, Canada’s President of the Treasury Board and a Member of Parliament with the Conservative Party of Canada.
So, what does Tony Clement say about Canada’s economic growth and low debt? That it comes as a result of the genius idea of the Conservative Party of Canada to reduce its federal corporate tax rate from 22% in 2006 to 15% in January 2012 and to cut spending.
It goes to show that conservatives in the US and elsewhere all say the same bunch of baloney nonsense.
The article offers this numbers to show how well Canada is performing:
Canada’s unemployment rate is now 7.3%, the U.S. rate is 8.2%.
Canada’s combined federal and provincial debt to GDP ratio is 57.9%, the U.S. rate was 101.5% in 2011.
Canada’s banks are among the best capitalized in the world and during the financial crisis, no Canadian banking institutions had to be bailed out. Canada also has a better credit rating than the U.S.
Just 0.35% of Canadian mortgages are behind on their payments, In the US int eh 1st quarter of 2012, 5.78% of U.S. mortgage holders were behind on their payments by 60 days or more.
Great, good for Canada, but that has NOTHING to do with the TAX and spending cuts! It is the same as claiming that Obama caused the recession.
Fact is, that Canada simply was not as affected by the recession of 2008-09, because Canada did not gamble as much as the US with financials and real estate. Why not? Because they did have a government with stricter regulations. If Canada has more regulations, less debt, a healthier work force due to its healthcare program and provides people with better opportunities to get ahead economically via entitlement services, it is because these were put in place by LIBERAL governments, not because of the current conservative government.
Canadians are not afraid of the word "Liberal", which is why they have a party called the "Liberal Party" which governed the country from 1993 to 2006. That is 13 consecutive years of liberalism!
Some other fundamental social programs that run so successfully in Canada compared to the US were also introduced by Liberals in earlier years, for example: the Canada Health Act was introduced by the Liberal Trudeau government in 1983.
The effect of cutting taxes will be shown in about 8 years of a Conservative government. That is how long it took Bush to bring down the system and depress the wages of the middle class and the poor and fill the Swiss bank accounts of the rich. And if Canada also moves towards deregulation of their financial system they will end up just as bad as we did.