Explain What "Stimulus" Means to Canada's Finance Minister Flaherty 
This is the type of action that, by acting in a shrewd, timely manner, can prevent a negative response. It makes one think of that old saying, "A stitch in time saves nine."
Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, speaking in Ottawa, is apparently working on a different operational definition where stimulus and the act of stimulation are concerned. While Canada is headed for a likely recession, Flaherty said that he had no plans to introduce an economic stimulus package before next spring's budget.
"We've made dramatic tax cuts already," Flaherty explained. He later added, "We're not in a recession right now." While conceding that Canada is "not in a recession right now" he concedes that it is "reasonable" that the nation will be in a "technical recession," which is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, by the first quarter of 2009.
Flaherty has revealed himself as a seasoned trooper in the Harper-Bush-Cheney tradition by doing the old tax cut soft shoe that brings smiles to the faces of the right.
In positing his wait and see approach on a stimulus package, Flaherty noted, "We've made dramatic tax cuts already." Just ask any red-blooded supply sider on the planet and you will be promptly told that tax cuts are the see all and do all, and that they really resonate when you structure them largely on that good old upper tier that spreads money around when candidates of the right seek to be elected.
He spoke some more words in a similar vein in supplying assurance, promising that the Harper Government would "keep taxes low and continue with tax reduction programs."
Following the article appearing in the Toronto Star by Linda Diebel, readers had a chance to weigh in, with one writer, using the e-mail moniker of WildLover, stating succinctly, "I have three words for our federal government. Irresponsible, shortsighted and unelectable."
Walton Tower III made the following observation:
"Lovely! Another example of our 'leaders' talking out of both sides of their mouth. Harper spends the weekend on junket saying how dire things are and now Jimbo says manana. Do these guys talk? Or do they just know the Canadian sheep won't really notice anyway, and if they did notice, they'd do nothing about it."
These words and the sentiment behind them represent the same kind of anger and deeply rooted frustration seen currently in America.
How sad it is to see the similarities of the Harper and Bush-Cheney regimes, the old give the wealthy enough in the way of tax cuts and good fortune will result for the citizenry when it all trickles down.
"Trickle down" are code words for economic disaster, as revealed in the economy Roosevelt inherited in the thirties, driven by Republican trickle down policies of the twenties, what Clinton found after two terms by Reagan and one by George Bush the Elder, and what Obama confronts after eight disastrous years under Bush the Younger and Dick "The Enforcer" Cheney.
KEYWORDS: Jim Flaherty, Steven Harper, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Canadian Economy
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