Tighten your belt, my cronies could use the $$$

Nice, Harper, just one more broken promise and show of hypocrisy. We are asked to tighten our belts and suck it up when we need programs and services, but hey there's lots of money to go around to pay Parliament to sit around doing nothing until 26 Jan, and to offer 7 new Cabinet spots ($500k plus support staff) and 18 cushy new jobs in Senate ($6M) to right-wing friends. They even manage to coincide the "tighten your belts" announcement with the announcement of new expensive staff. How the Cons ever manage to convince anyone they are about fiscal conservatism is beyond me. Once again we get to see that their brand of "fiscal conservatism" means "spend it like you stole it" for their cronies, and fiscal conservatism (aka cutting infrastructure and vital programs and services) for everybody else. You know... undeserving people like veterans, sick, elderly, poor, homeless, displaced workers, college students, at-risk youths, and children.

This is exactly the mindset of the U.S. Republicans. I should know, I lived there and watched them rob us all blind while giving money hand over fist to the oil companies, banks, big pharma, and the otherwise filthy rich.

This article, excerpted below, is a great read and spot-on from both a Canadian and an American perspective. As a Canadian-American Canadian, I am well-positioned to vouch for its accuracy. If you look at the record of Conservatives and Republicans alike, you see a trend of burning through surpluses, tax cuts to the rich, and cutting needed programs and services for those who need them most. Stéphane Dion may not have been very popular, but he was right on target about this:

Harper, he said, "suffers from the same fatal flaw as other right-wing politicians. he talks about shrinking government then he spends and spends building nothing with no coherent plan."

"History shows us that in tough economic times, it is progressive governments that put economies back on track. Clinton after Reagan and Bush. Blair after Thatcher and Major. Chretien and Martin after Mulroney. And, of course, McGuinty after Harris."

Shame on you, Harper. How dare you ask us to sacrifice while spending like it's going out of style. I can only hope Canadians are sitting up and taking notice of your Bush/Reagan/Dubya neo-con ideology, and throw you out in disgrace just like George W.... widely despised, with everyone onto you and your games and eager to undo all the damage you have done. You are a scourge and disgrace to our country just like W is to the U.S.