Friday, April 05, 2013

Gordon Campbell v. Christy Clark....Who Is Griftier?

Policy?
WeDon'tNeedNoStinkingPolicyVille


You know, I have real issues with how Mr. Campbell ran British Columbia.

But I will concede the point that there was an element of policy that formed the foundation what he and his did, at least in the beginning.

It is something that Martyn Brown made clear recently when he wrote about how important it was that the Campbell government cut government spending per citizen significantly.

Now....

As I've said, I would be more willing to cut the Campbellites some slack in the wake of their heartless slashing and burning if not for two things.

First, it didn't work. Because even with all the slashing and burning, as well as the massive corp-to-citizen cost-shifting and privatization that went on, we ended up back at exactly the same place as we were when the last NDP government ended.

Second, all the public asset sales and the phony market creation schemes resulted in a hyper-cronyism that was egregious in the extreme and, worse, is something that we will be paying for for generations.

Of course, it is that last part that is the Griftier side of the Gord.

And...

I guess the thing that concerns me most about Mr. Clark and friends is that they appear to be working an 'all-grift-all-the-time' shellgame without any hint of a policy foundation underpinning anything that they do.

I mean, does anyone seriously think that, now that the latest StatsCan numbers are out, that she and hers will actually stick with her 'jobs plan'?

Or that the 'Prosperity Fund' numbers are anything but fictional?

Or that the Bollywood thingy will mean anything in two weeks?

Or that families were ever first?

Or that a whole series of 'quick win' schemes are not being hatched right now, deep in the fever-swamped bunker as I type?

****

So.

If you have someone who really is the griftiest of them all running things, can you just imagine what they would get up to if they actually had a mandate to do absolutely nothing policy-driven for an entire four years?


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4 comments:

Danneau said...

We would be back at the same place as when the NDP left office with the difference that the Dippers produced two surplus budgets---audited for authenticity and veracity. That seems unlikely. One of the first and most egregious lies out of Campbell's pie hole was that the province's finances were in terrible shape and that he needed to immediately institute a 2+ billion-dollar tax cut. I recall saying to Erica at the time that the first thing from the Lizard King would be about the deplorable state of the treasury and, lo!, for the first time in my life, I was right. This is more a function of GC's predictability than any smarts or luck on my part.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ross- frequent reader, new poster.Coming from the east side of Canada, I was really glad to see I'm not the lone beach glass angler on the west coast.
Campbell or Clark? It's like being a judge in a turd tasting contest.

scotty on Denman said...

Lovin' "griftier and griftiest". Campbell was truly all about "hypercronyism".

I agree Campbell at least baited the switch.

Dana said...

The other thing Campbell did was set an election date for his forced elections schedule that virtually guarantees chaos if the BCLibs are facing defeat.

There are no public institutions that can budget accurately or at all right now.

The existing gov't is so consumed with trying to survive that they aren't responding to requests and the NDP have no authority to say anything.

So - chaos, uncertainty and fear.

The 3 horsemen of the Campbell apocalypse.

Never trust a 'twisted mouth'.