The costs of election time promises

[Birdy]

The Globe and Mail has a section on their website that tracks the spending promises made by all of the major parties during this election campaign.

It can be found here.

Conservatives - $6.5 billion over 5 years

Liberals - $54.5 billion over 4 years

NDP - $51.6 billion over 4 years

Greens - $22.5 billion over 4 years

Pretty substantial stuff here.

[mattm]

Those numbers might be kind of deceiving. There's no way in hell that over the next 4 years they only spend 6.5 billion, not gonna happen. Man, that's only 1.625 billion a year which doesn't seem like much to me. Unless all the things they've already committed to aren't being included there to make the numbers nice like:

$490 billion over 20 years for military -> 490 / 20 = 24.5 * 17 [yeas left] = $416 billion

$2 billion over seven years for the production of renewable fuels -> 2 / 7 * 4 [years left] = $1.14

10-Year $41.3 billion Federal/Provincial Plan to Strengthen Health Care -> 41.3 / 10 = 4.13 * 7 [years left] = $28.1 billion

I bet my math is off but there and I just found out about the $490 billion from http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/06/20/military-plan.html which, for all I know, might not even be true.

My point is that the page gives an unfair advantage to the cons by not mentioning the things they already plan to spend money on...

Please correct me if I'm wrong here

[Birdy]

These are only those promises made during the election campaign. Not those already in place. In defense of the Liberals, they are projecting a larger take home due to the carbon tax and have most likely beafed up their spending to offset. Which I suppose they'll have to, if the carbon tax lives up to what critics say it's going to do, and forces businesses to leave Canada and people to lose their jobs. The NDP, i rarely can find any excuse for, and totally agree with Stephane Dion when he said their policy would be damaging for the economy. Out of all of them, and considering circumstance, I think the Greens have things about right. Just expect more blue collar stay at home dads benefitting from the tax split.

[d_rawk]

. In defense of the Liberals, they are projecting a larger take home due to the carbon tax and have most likely beafed up their spending to offset.

It would be civil, then, to extend that same courtesy to the NDP in regards to projected increased revenue via cap and trade.

Anyways, the reason the Conservative Party's number is so low is because they are the only party to have not yet released a public platform. If you look at the tally for the Liberals, the NDP, and the Greens, the lump sum comes from the platform proposals. The CPC has not made any such information public and are only being 'graded' on their stump speeches. If you were to subtract the dollar amounts from the Liberal and NDP platforms and also judge them only on verbal campaign promises, they would be in a similar territory. If you were to do the same with the Greens, they would be at $0.00.

[Birdy]

It would be civil, then, to extend that same courtesy to the NDP in regards to projected increased revenue via cap and trade.

I try and I can't. Something about universal health care doesn't really matter when people are unemployed.

[Birdy]

But, I do think Jack Layton would make an excellent neighbour.

[d_rawk]

I try and I can't. Something about universal health care doesn't really matter when people are unemployed.

Wha? Cap and trade is a strategy to address carbon emissions that rewards early-adopting industries financially and creates a market by which emission credits can be traded. IMO it is a better - and free market - solution to the issue than is the carbon tax. (Although I do prefer the carbon tax over nothing, as I think putting a price on emissions will be critical over the long run, but I think the tax is the wrong solution and punishes industry unnecessarily). So -- Liberals get a pass with a carbon tax, NDP gets tsk-tsked for encouraging a market solution. Boo.

Health care?

[Birdy]

Sorry, i'm not arguing the cap and trade program, mostly their entire platform of spending that focuses around the 'kitchen table' and cuts that focus on the 'evil boardroom'. I really do think their platform would be further damaging to an already pretty damaged industrial sector, and as much as I get that boardrooms are evil, they are a vital part of the way we operate our economy and have way too much potential to do good and not do good for a public party to publicly campaign how evil they are. I'll give points to the NDP for healthcare and skilled labour training, but everytime Jack Layton opens his mouth about big business I cringe.

Personally, i prefer nothing over both the tax and the cap and trade. I think we're taking the entirely wrong approach to environmental solutions. The tax for reasons i've already outlined, the cap and trade, while I like that it promotes non-polluting industries and gives incentive to them, we do have a very broad base of industry who do pollute and it's still money out of their pocket, potentials for MORE job loss, etc. Half of Chatham is unemployed and my buddies are moving away. I don't want more of them to have to. I think a cap and trade program allows those who can afford to pollute to just keep chugging along. Like i said elsewhere, why can't we help these companies first??? In the interim, my vote will stay with the CP's on this one... while i don't think it's nearly enough money, they're on the right track with grants to businesses to invest in pollution reduction, giving consumers initative to purchase energy-efficient cars, and support for research & development. If the CPs would take what they've budgeted here and times that by 3 or 4 over the next three years, i'd say it's the best environmental policy on the table. And then after those 3 or 4 years, with a little bit of foresight given, bring on a carbon tax. Just make sure that people/business are in the right frame of mind and pocketbook to deal with it first.

[d_rawk]

but everytime Jack Layton opens his mouth about big business I cringe.

I actually have the same reaction, and could go off on a big rant about this.

My only point of contention, and what I was getting at, is this:

In defense of the Liberals, they are projecting a larger take home due to the carbon tax and have most likely beafed up their spending to offset.

I feel that you either need to withdraw that defense, or extend it more broadly for the same reasons that you initially granted it.

[Birdy]

Ok, I see what you're getting at. The NDP would be projecting a larger take home due to their cuts on business and industry.

I think maybe it's best to withdraw my defense altogether. I don't particulary feel good about defending either one of these things.

Thanks for putting me into perspective!

[Birdy]

Here's a good article posted on the New York Times website back in March, but relevant to us come election time. I'm becoming increasingly fascinated with the Europeans... they've been on to a lot, for a long time. I don't think this would be by any means easy for Canada/ians, but i want it for us.

On Carbon, Tax and Don't Spend

EVERYONE seems to be talking about a carbon tax. It’s probably the most glamorous — and certainly the most unlikely — use of the tax code since Al Capone got hooked for tax evasion.

The idea is that polluters should pay for the environmental damage they cause. Slap a tax on carbon, the theory goes, and you will get fewer carbon emissions, more revenue for government and energy independence, all at the same time. No wonder people from both sides of the political divide have come out in support of it.

But a carbon tax isn’t a new idea. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had carbon taxes in place since the 1990s, but the tax has not led to large declines in emissions in most of these countries — in the case of Norway, emissions have actually increased by 43 percent per capita. An economist might say this is fine; as long as the cost of the environmental damage is being internalized, the tax is working — and emissions might have been even higher without the tax. But what environmentalist would be happy with a 43 percent increase in emissions?

The one country in which carbon taxes have led to a large decrease in emissions is Denmark, whose per capita carbon dioxide emissions were nearly 15 percent lower in 2005 than in 1990. And Denmark accomplished this while posting a remarkably strong economic record and without relying on nuclear power.

What did Denmark do right? There are many elements to its success, but taken together, the insight they provide is that if reducing emissions is the goal, then a carbon tax is a tax you want to impose but never collect.

This is a hard lesson to learn. The very thought of new tax revenue has a way of changing the priorities of the most hard-headed politicians — even Genghis Khan learned to be peaceful, the story goes, when he saw how much more rewarding it was to tax peasants than to kill them. But if we want lower emissions, the goal of a carbon tax is to prompt producers to change their behavior, not to allow them to continue polluting while handing over cash to the government.

How do you get them to change? First, you prevent policy makers from turning the tax into a cash cow. Carbon tax discussions always seem to devolve into gleeful suggestions for ways to spend the revenue. Reduce the income tax? Give the money to low-income consumers? Use it to pay for health care? Everyone seems to forget that the amount of revenue is directly tied to the amount of pollution that is still going on.

Denmark avoids the temptation to maximize the tax revenue by giving the proceeds back to industry, earmarking much of it to subsidize environmental innovation. Danish firms are pushed away from carbon and pulled into environmental innovation, and the country’s economy isn’t put at a competitive disadvantage. So this is lesson No. 1 from Denmark.

The second lesson is that the carbon tax worked in Denmark because it was easy for Danish firms to switch to cleaner fuels. Danish policy makers made huge investments in renewable energy and subsidized environmental innovation. Denmark back then was more reliant on coal than the other three countries were (but not more so than the United States is today), so when the tax gave companies a reason to leave coal and the investments in renewable energy gave them an easy way to do so, they switched. The key was providing easy substitutes.

The next president of the United States seems sure to be more committed to environmental policy than the current president is, and a carbon tax is high on everyone’s list of options. Indeed, a carbon tax has been promoted almost as a panacea — just pop in the economic incentives and watch them work their magic. But unless steps are taken to lock the tax revenue away from policymakers and invest in substitutes, a carbon tax could lead to more revenue rather than to less pollution.

An increase in gasoline taxes — the first instinct of many American policy makers when the idea of a carbon tax comes up — would likewise be the wrong policy for the United States. Higher gas taxes would raise revenue but do little to curb pollution.

Instead, if we want to reduce carbon emissions, then we should follow Denmark’s example: tax the industrial emission of carbon and return the revenue to industry through subsidies for research and investment in alternative energy sources, cleaner-burning fuel, carbon-capture technologies and other environmental innovations.

[mattm]

Personally, i prefer nothing over both the tax and the cap and trade. I think we're taking the entirely wrong approach to environmental solutions. The tax for reasons i've already outlined, the cap and trade, while I like that it promotes non-polluting industries and gives incentive to them, we do have a very broad base of industry who do pollute and it's still money out of their pocket, potentials for MORE job loss, etc. Half of Chatham is unemployed and my buddies are moving away. I don't want more of them to have to. I think a cap and trade program allows those who can afford to pollute to just keep chugging along. Like i said elsewhere, why can't we help these companies first??? In the interim, my vote will stay with the CP's on this one... while i don't think it's nearly enough money, they're on the right track with grants to businesses to invest in pollution reduction, giving consumers initative to purchase energy-efficient cars, and support for research & development. If the CPs would take what they've budgeted here and times that by 3 or 4 over the next three years, i'd say it's the best environmental policy on the table. And then after those 3 or 4 years, with a little bit of foresight given, bring on a carbon tax. Just make sure that people/business are in the right frame of mind and pocketbook to deal with it first.

I agree with you there and I also think that what they're going to do with the carbon tax is wrong. I say help the industries (and yeah, I'll give up some of my hard earned money for that if I have to) get clean and if they choose not to then punish them or smile and nod when they leave the country.

Here's my ideal but wouldn't work because we're way too greedy solution:

G8 gets together and sets a date where they are green. Green meaning that any business in the G8 countries that pollutes heavily or deals with a country that pollutes heavily looses their ability to do business in any G8 country. So, you have businesses here that pollute and if you tax them they move to china but if all the big buyers get together and say we won't allow things from china if they aren't clean then there's no reason to move industry to china because although they might lose revenue here due to tax, moving will cost them every cent.

On top of this, if this type of policy were put into place, the amount of research done on clean energy would skyrocket and making the changes would become easier and easier as well as cheaper and cheaper.

hahahahaha, like something like that could happen. For one, the countries would never agree because money is way too important and the big picture is actually pretty damn small (couple years, that's all). For another everyone would complain that it's too hard and that it's too expensive and so what if our kids all drop dead at 50 because of bad air or can never go outside, besides, that won't happen... (though it actually is happening and there are numbers to prove it although 50 is young at the moment who knows what the future will bring if we don't stop fucking around).

Just a note, don't bother going over all the reasons something like that won't work, I already know there will be a thousand excuses of why it can't work. This is just my little dream of everyone working together to make a better world but, and though it might be too late, I think we're still too primitive for something like that, the idea that we don't always have to be in competition and can work together...

slightly off topic this thread has become.