Getting some very interesting (by which I mean predictable/typical) replies to my column on Bill Morneau's legacy from outraged Liberals today. I'll walk through some of them in a thread here, but first, as always, start with the column itself: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-morneaus-legacy-will-be-the-deficits-he-ran-not-because-he-had-to-but-because-it-was-easy/wcm/d4e21a59-f378-4ee9-8d21-e64e082f2e85/

So the thesis was an early swing at what Morneau's legacy might be, written in that long ago era of, uhhh, 11 hours ago, when it was reasonable to believe that Morneau's resignation was gonna be the most interesting thing to happen today. That lasted like four hours. +

My overall guess is that it won't actually be anything related to the pandemic. He was clearly too out of step with the PM on what the LPC's signature responses will be, so the PM will get the credit (and I do think he'll get some credit) for those. Morneau, I said, will be ... +

... judged for his pre-COVID performance more than his efforts during it. (This will be common across the West, I think, but I digress.) Anyway, as I noted in the column, Morneau has already told us what he's proud of from those years: CPP boosts, CCB, jobs, poverty reduction. +

I roll my eyes at any government claiming job creation. They all do it, it's always dumb, so let's just ignore that. That leaves CPP (sure, OK, fair), CCB (genuinely a good policy the Liberals will be remembered well for) and poverty reduction. All these things are good. +

And the CCB, like I said, was VERY good. So Morneau is right to say these were the key wins of his term.

The problem, I noted, is that the (real) progress and accomplishments were achieved using the cheat codes of deficit spending — well beyond what the LPC committed to. +

I didn't have room to get into this in the column, but it reminded me — a lot — of the McGuinty and Wynne era at Queen's Park. (Some of you will have a pretty good idea why that might be, but that's another thread.) The Ontario Liberals talked and talked and talked ... +

... about all the amazing things they were doing, and they really did do some good stuff, but it's easy to do good stuff when you'll just borrow all the money you want and then spend it.

You'd have to be brain dead NOT to do good when you do that.+

I mean, not to make this silly, but it's like taking the best, most exciting and enriching and spectacular vacations, and telling everyone who good you are at travelling, but you're just wiping out the line of credit on all the equity in your house. The trips are great, but ... +

I'm pretty conservative in my politics (surprise!) but I'm not hostile to spending by default. Some things are necessary expenditures, and some things are luxuries that the voters decide they'd like to have. Sure, that's fine. What I do insist is that we pay for what we want. +

So if Morneau wants to point to the CPP, the CCB and poverty reduction as his proudest accomplishments, that's awesome. Good for him. Those are all worthy goals. But that's why we should have found a way to pay for it. Tax people more. Move money over. Whatever. +

I mean that very sincerely — tax people more. Raise the GST. Go after home equity. Raise marginal rates. Whatever. Personally, as the guy likely to get zinged by all the taxes the LPC would likely go for, I'd PERSONALLY prefer they not, but I can RESPECT a choice to do that. +

What I can't respect is the all-too typical bullshit we got from this government, selling people on all the benefits while just skipping over the costs. They made firm commitments to the public about how they'd control their spending, and blew through them. +

They didn't have to. They could have told us, this is important for a lot of reasons, and that's why we're going to pay for it, and here's how.

As a citizen (and oped editor) I WANT THAT DEBATE!

But that would require some courage of their supposed convictions, I suppose. +

At the very top of the thread, I referred to some of the interesting response I'm getting from Liberals. I had one (fairly polite) email from a woman arguing that the CCB made a huge difference for her family, and she was clearly under the impression I opposed it. +

And that's something I get a lot. You could definitely find some of that here in full public view on Twitter. If you say Program X shouldn't be funded with borrowed money, people get pissy about your criticism of Program X. Program X saved my job! +

Or, as in that woman today, Program X materially improved the life of my children, and how dare you oppose it!

I don't. I just think we ought to pay for it. With our taxes, not the taxes of future people. And when I say this, it blows people's minds. +

And this is what I don't get about the Liberals in particular. The CPC generally doesn't want to spend your money (in theory, anyway). That's a coherent position. The NDP wants to spend all the money, and they're pretty open that they're gonna come and take it from ya. +

The Liberals wanna spend the money, but they don't wanna collect the money. They'll take a bit here and there, soak the rich a tad more, but they don't have the guts to actually have the REAL argument — this is something society should do, it's gonna cost us, but it's WORTH IT.+

I'd like that debate. Honest. I'd like to see Canadians have that debate. I have some surprising residual faith in us, at least in terms of this — I think if we had an honest debate about what stuff would cost, what it would do and how we'd pay for it, the world wouldn't end. +

I mean, at least not any more so than it would already have.

But the Liberals don't. They offer up all the good, discuss none of the bad, and when questioned on it, reply with talking points. When the heat gets real, they prorogue parliament.

Well, OK. So noted.