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A country bigger than the USA with as many or more natural resources and a population of 35 million and surrounded to the south by the most industrialized country in the world. Ummmmmmmmm pretty much anything would work when you have those odds. The point is moot! We have as many illegals as Canada has population.
Canada's economic growth is superior to the US growth (and not that much) just for one main reason I think : housing boom in Canada, housing difficulties in the US.
Obama failed to promote efficient ways to restore the housing growth in the country.
So, exactly should he have done to restore the housing crisis?
It’s hard to find good economic news anywhere in the West. The Greeks are rioting, the Irish economy is in a tailspin. As the most recent dip in confidence index numbers show, American business leaders don’t like where we’re headed, either. Yet there is one country where the unemployment rate actually fell last month: Canada. Its 7.4 percent unemployment rate reflects huge private-sector job gains consolidated over the past year. That’s surprising from a nation with a big-government reputation.
As a recent Mercatus Center study showed, Canada set about fixing its fiscal house many years ago. The first order of business was trimming government spending, which was accomplished without triggering unemployment or requiring massive cuts in entitlements. These repairs allowed the country to weather this most recent global downturn with minimal stress. It’s not too late for America to learn from our neighbor to the north.
Apparently "trickle down" economics works very well
"which was accomplished without triggering unemployment or requiring massive cuts in entitlements"
Canada had a huge government, bigger than our own on scale. So cuts helped considerably. Also they did raise taxes, then they lowered corporate tax rates but closed their loopholes.
The United States may have a 35% corporate tax rate, but its really only about 10% effectively. Just look at all of the multibillion dollar companies that paid 0 income tax last year during the worst financial crisis in our countries history since the great depression.
Trickle up doesn't work. Lowering tax rates, while closing loopholes actually brings in more tax money. This is going to be the compromise that happens here in our country.
Whats wrong with the American system of government right now is that you have Republicans who are unwilling to budge on "revenue increases" from simplifying the tax code, because a very small part of their base screams no tax increases at all.
They have to appear to have done all they could, so that the small part of the Republican base that refuses to want to increase income to the government at all won't refuse to vote for them.
And healthcare. We should also do what Canada does with health care. I'm glad Republicans are coming around to seeing how well the Canadian model of governing is working for our neighbors to the north.
The welfare state has not been regned in that much at all. There were some adjustments made for sure but overall most entitlement programmes remain mostly the same. One of the biggest changes that was made was the whole idea of "Downloading". In other words the Federal government to a large extent decentralized it's powers to the provinces. The individual provinces became more responsible for running, paying for and maintaining all of their social programmes. This has caused some problems of course especially in the medical field. Services were cut back, investment in new facilities was clawed back and that was the beginning of wait times and DR. shortages etc.
It's quite a surprising thing but this was begun when a "LIBERAL" government took over the government from a very right wing government that had been in power for the previous 8 years. Like many so called conservative governments this "Brian Mulrooney" government spent spent and spent some more. When the Liberals took power the IMF was about to downgrade Canada's credit to third world levels if something was not done. Following this adjustment the government had budgit surpluses for 11 years in a row until the present recession put us into the red again.
Personally, I'm very much of a social reformer in my political outlook but I realize that programmes that are poorly concieved or poorly run can cause great problems in a country. When I was a young teen back in the 60's you only had to work for 8 weeks per year to collect unimployment insurance for a year. There were tens of thousands of young Canadians on the UI ski team if you know what I mean. Between the ages of 18 to 20 I worked 16 weeks and travelled and had a lot of fun on the Canadian taxpayers dime the remainder of the two years. NOT GOOD AT ALL. Not only was it not good for me because I should have been working and developing my employable skills but it was bad for the country from a cost standpoint. Those days are long behind the country today and they even changed the name of the programme to "employment insurance". Things have been really tightened up and during all the years the government was in the black the EI fund had billions in surpluses.
The federal government cutting back on social funding and improving their bottom line does not however tell the whole story. The province of Ontario for example ran a deficit of something like 24 billion last year it's self. That's like bigger than a California deficit.
Since this action by the feds put the provinces in a bind they "downloaded" a lot of survices and programmes they had always funded to the municipalities. This too has reduced the level of services and programmes greatly in some locations. It has had a negitive impact on education, infrastructure, sports and parks etc.
It's certainly all a balancing act and even the most social minded of the citizens should know and well realize that fact. There is no such thing as a free lunch and someone has to pay for it one way or the other. The entire secret to it is to be able to give the citizens as much as the country can afford in social programmes and at the same time maintain a good environment for business and investment to keep the whole running smooth. To do otherwise is like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
PS. One thing that this article fails to mention which makes me believe it's written from a right wing bias is, Canada did a huge stimulus package during the current recession. I believe that per capita it's bigger than the USA stimulus but I would have to check that to make sure. Anyway it was large. It also fails to mention that the Canadian government rescued GM Canada and it would just be unthinkable not to have done so. Tens of thousands of jobs, billions in taxes down the road and that loan will be repaid.
I really believe that the present success of the Canadian economy vs. the rest of the western world has far more to do with government regulations than anything else. It's wall street and corporate greed that has put the USA on the skids far more than anything else and of course the piece would not mention that fact. That flies in the face of the right wings contention that it's social programmes that are killing the American economy. As my favorite Canadian politician of all times said, "It's not the people on welfare that need a helping hand I'm concerned about, it's the corporate welfare bums in this country that cause me concern".
Thank you for writing something based in actual knowledge, instead of conjecture.
Also funny here are the claims that Canada has a "monolithic" culture, unlike the US, and has "restrictive" immigration policies. Wrong and wrong.
1. Canada currently accepted 250,000 to 300,000 immigrants a year, the highest rate in the world after Australia. That would be 2.3 to 2.8 million on the scale of the US, which is clearly not true.
2. Roughly 40% of Canadians are now either first or second generation immigrants (24% being first generation, in 2006). Canada is linguistically diverse - as of the 2006 census, the mother tongue of 57% of the population was English, 22% claimed French, and 21% claimed another language. In terms of race, 17% were visible minorities.
Apparently "trickle down" economics works very well
Apparently in 2012 people still making basic logical fallacies that most people learn in grade school.
*** hoc ergo propter hoc
You're assuming that because Canada had some cuts that it somehow magically stimulated their economy. Of course, it's rather unintelligent to mention Canada's economic condition without mentioning the natural resource boom that the country is going through.
Should cutting alone work, Greece would right now be the strongest economy in Europe.
And regulation. Canadian banks didn't cause a crisis because they were well regulated.
These people are incapable of analytical thought. They read a headline, get politically aroused and start a thread.
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and your idea is?
