Obama's buy America plan not Harper's fault

It is part of the job of the opposition parties in Parliament to criticize the government. To do so effectively they need credibility and you don’t help your credibility when you blame the government for something that is clearly not its fault. A good example of this has come up recently with the Obama administration’s plan to introduce a “buy American” provision with its “jobs” plan. The Liberals and NDP seem to be blaming the Conservatives for this protectionist move.

The claim is that if the Conservative government had a stronger and better relationship with the US government then Canada would automatically be exempted.

The problem is that no matter how friendly Mr. Harper is to Mr. Obama, domestic politics will trump foreign relations every single time. This is an almost universal truth. It is most certainly true in Canada. Domestic politics kept Canada out of the joining the US in a joint anti-ballistic defense system even though it made sense from a foreign affairs perspective.

If the domestic mood in America is in support of a policy, there isn’t much that Canada can do to prevent it.

Basically the “buy America” provisions don’t mean that Stephen Harper sucks at managing Canada’s relationship with the United States. It means that the United States has a protectionist President that is damaging to Canadian trade.

The Liberals and NDP should reserve all their ire on this issue for Barrack Obama.

Obama's job plan won't work

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute has written a nice summary of the bad ideas that can be found in Obama's new spending plan.

• A temporary payroll tax cut. This is not a tax cut at all because the president would “pay for it” with tax hikes later on. And if it’s temporary, it won’t encourage businesses to hire additional workers anyway.
• More federal infrastructure. When the federal government spends on infrastructure, it often misallocates the funds. The list of federal infrastructure boondoggles and cost overruns is endless — in public housing, dam-building, Corps of Engineers projects, bridges to nowhere, high-speed rail, etc. Instead, what we need is higher-quality infrastructure spending financed and built by the private sector. We need private airports, private air-traffic control, and private toll highways.
• A federal infrastructure bank. Such a financial scheme would reduce transparency in federal spending, which would go directly against a key Obama promise of increased budget transparency.
• Federal jobs training programs. Since the 1960s, federal jobs-training programs simply haven’t worked.
• New business tax credits. New tax credits for hiring will distort business decisionmaking and, by making the tax code more complicated, such credits would encourage more tax cheating. They would be the exact sort of tax loophole that Obama claims to hate.
• Crony capitalism. When Obama talks about “government and business working side-by-side,” it sounds to me like an invitation to corruption.
• Extending unemployment insurance. Such subsidies would help keep the unemployment rate high.

Pay your bills B

Stop messing around Obama

Standard & Poor has lowered the USA federal government`s credit rating. This was more than predictable. It is exactly what they said would happen if the US government doesn`t come forth with a real plan to bring the country out of red. Despite the antics around the debt ceiling. The United States is in no better position today than it was on July 31st.

Barrick Obama must wake up to the steady decline of America`s finances and the inevitible consequances. Stop the smoke and mirrows and actually cut spending.