An election campaign usually comes down to be one basic proposition. If the perception of this proposition is not obvious, the news media will often pick something. What most political observers agree on about this is that while the political parties would like to choose this one thing, they rarely do.
It is reasonable at this juncture that the Conservatives want to fight the next election on the proposition that the Harper Tories are the best managers of our economy. The New Democrats want to be the alternative to the Tories because they want to get rid of the Senate. And that leaves the Liberals a broad range of targets. The danger for the Liberals will be that they might go after a broad range of targets and fail to reduce them to the one simple idea.
The absolutely worst proposition for the Liberals is the legalizing of marijuana. This would cloud the issues of the election and turn the Liberal campaign into a farce. At the same time, the Liberals have to stay away from any grouping of issues that can be costed. There is no way the party can appear more stringent than the Tories, nor does it want to provide any fixed figures on which their opponents can attack them.
One of the more interesting possible propositions is the concept of a national guaranteed annual income. This is an idea that’s time has come. This would involve the consolidation of a broad range of federal and provincial programs and take a long time to properly implement but would not really cost more than all of today’s expenditures that are badly mismanaged. The savings are in all the jurisdictions and provincial ministries, federal departments and bureaucracies that can be reduced and consolidated into a more humane, streamlined system.
The system can be as simple as a reverse income tax. If an individual is not earning as much as the poverty baseline, they apply to the guaranteed annual income agency for payments that will take the individual up to the baseline. Pass the baseline in income and the income tax system will be taking some cash back. It really can be that simple.
But the Conservatives among us will be horrified. Why they seem to think that a person should have to freeze or starve to death is never very clear. As Charles Dickens’ Mr. Scrooge asked, “Are there no work houses?”
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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