The fading relevancy of fiscal responsibility
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
186.95924
Summary
Is fiscal conservatism still a thing? Do people still worry about budgets and debt and deficits? I mean, I know I sound like I m being facetious, but I really wonder this day and age, the issues that are dominating the political cycle, not just priorities for left-wingers but for conservatives too, don t seem to warrant much mention of fiscal issues.
Transcript
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is fiscal conservatism still a thing do people still talk about that do people still worry about
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budgets and debt and deficits i mean i know i sound like i'm being facetious but i really wonder
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this day and age the issues that are dominating the political cycle not just priorities for
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left-wingers but for conservatives too don't seem to warrant much mention of fiscal issues now there
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are some diehard fiscal hawks in the u.s who really disappointed with what donald trump did the other
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week signing a bill with nancy pelosi to basically kick the fiscal can down the road he's having to
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increase spending in exchange for some other things he wants and you're not hearing much about it they
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used to have debt ceiling debates in the u.s where republicans would say no that's it we're not raising
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the debt anymore this is reckless it's irresponsible we'd have massive national conversations about it
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all this time around nothing nada zilch and here in canada too you've got doug ford planning to run
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deficits throughout the entirety of his first term you've got andrew shear saying i don't know in my
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first term it'll take me a good few years to balance things i'll still have to run some pretty sizable
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deficits as well i mean what gives this summer i'm talking to canadians about their plans they're
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talking about the price of houses you know wanting to get ahead in a home in a city like toronto or
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vancouver montreal ottawa it's difficult they're talking about summer vacations scrimping and saving
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and so forth so we talk about family budgets we know the value of a dollar and we know that these
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things matter and we have to impart these things to our children one good thing they are actually doing
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in the ontario government is they're bringing in financial literacy for young people in the
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classroom which is an incredibly important thing and it's great to see that the conservatives in
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ontario are doing that but from a budgetary perspective there's just none of it is it that
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people have just lost lost the willpower for the fight they've lost the fire because they know of
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course that whenever you say we're going to readjust this or that there's some special interest group
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that storms to the streets with protest signs calling you all these mean names and you go what's the
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point nobody rewards me for doing this and yet i get vilified for doing it for returning the the
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province of the country or what have you to fiscal health i i don't know what it is i've just suddenly
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noticed that these things have massively dropped off the map it is incredibly troubling to see this in
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this summer as canadians talk about how they can scrimp and save and their budgeting needs it would be
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nice if they put pressure on the politicians to do the same