Facing an economic wall, we moved quickly in 1995 to reduce the size and cost of government. It needed to be done. At the same time, we reduced taxes to stimulate private sector job creation and investment. It worked.
We balanced the budget on schedule and created more than 750,000 new private sector jobs in four years. That growth and prosperity lifted thousands of Ontarians from the despair of welfare into meaningful work and created the tax revenue for investments in both health and education.
Actually, Ontario rode the economic boom in America that coincided with Harris assuming power. It was as simple as that.
Despite that, most of our wages have gone nowhere, while the upper echelons have enjoyed increased income.
There's no mention in his piece of selling a highway to balance the budget, or of the eventual structural deficit that developed under his government, or of the lack of preparedness and resources for crisis like Walkerton and SARS. Sure, the debt came under Eves even as they lied about it, but it was Harris' model of government that did it.
"To benefit from history, we first have to understand it" says Harris. Indeed.
And Harris is no historian.
2 comments:
There's no mention in his piece of...
The chaos created in lower levels of government as they scrambled to deal with the sudden and poorly thought out offloading of responsibilities from the province which is one of the ways he tried (and failed) to balance the budget. Do you have a property tax bill that's been climbing relentlessly in the last decade? I do.
There's so much he doesn't mention because it is indefensible.
It's a bankrupt political philosophy, but instead of abandoning it, he clings to it like an addict does to crack.
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