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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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Yay! Lower quality services is some that benefits everyone! Thanks bank daddy!
Which services are you thinking of?
The major thing I've seen is reducing the number of public sector employees back to 2020 levels, which doesn't seem wild. (I haven't seen a good explanation of why we needed to increase the public sector by 20% since then, nor of what we got out of that. If you have anything, I'd love to read it!) Throw in some reductions of outside consultants etc...
There are undoubtedly some programs getting cut. But given we're teetering on the edge of an adversary induced recession, that doesn't seem unsreasonable.
Here's an easy explanation: we didn't have enough.
Wait times are no fun, right? Need more people to process the things, or you need to remove some of the regulatory steps involved. Both those, the doing of the work and the fruitless "just make it faster" boondoggles, need meatbags to do the doing.
You now how we can tell we didn't have enough? WAIT TIMES. When it's zero, you may have too many staff. When it's a day, you're probably just right. Show me a wait time report and I'll show you 12 months in processing delays that we should have avoided by grabbing an intelligent peon and making them do some things of the things that need doing -- because processing delays and wait times are absolutely the shits right now.
QED
Exactly, Canadian population growth is outstripping service supply and has been for some time. I still have a coworker who thinks the CRA personnel should be cut to the proportions the USA has, as if that's a benchmark to aspire to.
To each their own.
Edit: removed personal details.
If you know anyone who works in government or a quasi governmental agency, they will tell you horror stories of colleagues who couldn't be removed but couldn't be arsed to do anything over the bare minimum (like being sober, showing up and handling at least one file a day.)
There has to be something in between the nihilistic conservative "burn it all down, no more bureaucracy!" and the opposite "every government employee is sacred!" I think a slow reduction through attrition and buyouts seems pretty reasonable and gives enough time to actually find efficiencies and innovations.
The fundamental flaw is equating corporate efficiency with public effectiveness. A company's goal is shareholder returns, so it serves profitable customers and abandons the rest. We see this taken to its extreme with certain venture capital and private equity firms: they can buy a company, burden it with the debt used for its own acquisition, extract massive fees and dividends, and leave it a hollowed out shell. When it collapses, the architects of that failure are shielded from the consequences.
A government's mission is the opposite: to serve everyone, especially the vulnerable. Applying this profit extraction model to public service doesn't eliminate costs it just shifts them, following the destructive maxim of 'privatize the profits, socialize the costs.' For a corporation, this might be a successful short-term play. But for a government it's long-term ruin
Getting back to 2019 spending levels over a few years is hardly hollowing out the government.
And what that freed up money is doing is investing in stuff that makes those services work better.
For example in healthcare, which is hanging on by a thread, I think a few billion are going to building and renovating hospitals and investing in a new medical school. Those all make the services more efficient and sustainable in the long run.
Edit: My goodness, the cuts are something like 13 billion out of a 500 billion budget.
Most of the money got reallocated to the military though.
They're cutting 13 billion. 51 billion (over 10 years) is going to local infrastucture; housing, roads, health and sanitation facilities.
Yes, military got more (~82 billion) and I don't love that. Though, one part I do love is that a chunk of that military is also dual use, so climate emergencies like wildfires, floods etc.
Then give it to firefighters, climate scientists and forestry. The military is reactive not preventative.
Sure, you can dislike the military spending.
That doesn't mean the budget isn't investing more in the public than it is withdrawing.
I dislike the increase in spending on military because the returns to the public are minimal, the US has proven that, decades running.
Again, that's a fine and valid critique of the budget.
This position however, does not seem valid when the budget is putting in more than it removes from actual public services, 51 billion v 13.
That part wasn't a critique of the budget, it was a critique of your pitch for efficiency. You pivoted the discussion, I followed.
Maybe re-read what you reaponded to?
It's pretty nonsensical to claim that because you're providing a public good you can't do so more effectively.
Nah I'm good dude, don't have the energy, you can have this one.
Phew, I was thinking the same. I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Cheers.
I don't have anything in particular, as I haven't seen details, but the public service exists to serve the public, cutting the workforce ends up reducing services. Since we're on the edge of a recession I'd say tax the billionaires, go back and charge Google for the billions that we were supposed to get before Carney bowed down to trump. We will now also have many unemployed more unemployed people which causes strains in other areas. I remain unconvinced that cuts for austerity purposes are ultimately beneficial, raise taxes on the ultra wealthy instead
But what services did we get with our ridiculous expansion of the public service over the last four years?
If memory serves, the tax in total, wad supposed to bring in 2 billion. We are paying an order of magnitude more than that to deal with tarrifs affected industries. It seems pretty reasonable to assume something that hits trump's donors so precisely would elicit a reaction that would cost us much more than we brought in.
Sure, I'd like to as well. But there are I think less than 100 billionaires in Canada. Say we could soak them for even another 100 million a year each (which would be extraordinary and almost require some wild changes to the tax code because of the nature of their wealth, but let's put those complications to the side.) Groovy. Until what, 1 in 10 decide it's worth that 100 million plus the existing difference to move to the States or elsewhere. It's a tricky balance and I've yet to see any of our populist "just tax the rich!" really show their math.
Edit: finished my thought after clicking accidentally.
Lets see what we miss out on if this budget passes.
Great that's 2 billion we left on the table. We are paying more, but guess what bowing down to trump has left us where exactly? Are we just supposed to keep bending over for trump and his cronies? Fucking nationalize shit if they play that game.
Good riddance they are a plague. Make them pay their taxes before they leave. They don't bring in anything, they cost us. We subsidize their businesses, think O&G. We burn the planet so they can have another yacht, that they got through tax loopholes. Fuck them
Ummm, did you forget you propsed they would be the solution to our budget woes? Or are you not old enough to pay taxes and don't realize we do those on an annual basis? (Putting aside the fact that most billionaires don't earn it on taxed wages but more that they own unsold stock.)
One of the best tarrif rates in the world?
Dafuq? You're saying nationalize google?
Jesus though, this is why it can be so hard to take progressives seriously. This is just mindless slogan yelling with zero thought.
I never said they would be the sole solution lol. I'm old enough to pay taxes and I'm pissed that my tax dollars subsidize them, you should be too. There are businesses that get crazy tax breaks that we should take back, spend taxes on the population not the ultra wealthy. Yes close the fucking loopholes.
I'd rather not be kissing his ass at all.
The infrastructure yes, but Google won't leave Canada if we enforce our laws because there are millions of Canadians and they would still make criminal amounts of money.
And this is why it's so hard to take centrists seriously, this is just mindless asskissing and excuse making to keep getting bent further and further over the barrel. We keep this up and you will own nothing and be happy for it, with no rights, no privacy, living in a corporate town using musk bucks to buy your Microsoft verification cans.
Okay, so if we're admitting your first plan of tax the wealthy is a little myopic here, which tax breaks are you considering removing? And how will this stop those businesses from instead, setting up shop in a lower tax, lower regulation, larger single market like Americas?
How many people should lose their jobs because of your sense of pride? Just curious.
Read what I wrote about the digital services tax. The concern was not that Google would leave.
He just descends into mindless sloganning again. Everything I've said can be backed up, whereas your thoughts aren't even consistent in this single thread!
Alright, I see you won't take this seriously, and as such I won't take you seriously. Best of luck to you
Nothing says serious like: "We'll just get the billionaires to pay for it!"
"and if they leave?"
"We don't need them!"
Lol.
Cheers kid.
👍
:)
OMG, let them move! We don't need these social parasites.
Okay, but the person to whom I'm responding wanted to save money by taxing them. So, what services would you cut to be rid of the people who are paying for those services?
The problem with the existence of billionaires is really the wealth inequality itself, not the number of dollars in their bank accounts.
Inequality is what gives the ultra-wealthy their outsized influence in the political economy.
Dollars are not scarce items; the government can issue currency essentially at will. Taxes aren't there to fund services. They exist to reduce inequality.
So yes, tax the billionaires. And if they leave: we're better off that way too!
Sorry, I seriously disagree with about all of this.
This is about Canadian politics. We have strict rules and limits on donations, advertising and support. Like anything, could probably be better but it's a pretty fair balance.
Apologies but this is childishly ignorant. Look to most countries in South America about the consequences of doing so. Inflation is very real and reducing the value of the Canadian dollar hurts those who can afford it least.
Absolutely not. Being equally poor without teachers, doctors, roads, defence, I mean my God.
We do. You let me know how much you think we do currently, how much more you would like.
Who needs hospitals, schools, emergency responders etc anyway? At least we won't have dumb ol' rich people anymore!
You're welcome to disagree - but everything I said is factual. If there's something you don't understand, I'm happy to explain - just ask.
Okay, sure, this is technically true. In the same way that technically, you can drink bleach it's just a very bad idea.
It's literally how we dealt with the first phase of the Covid pandemic. Was keeping millions of Canadians from being evicted a bad idea?
Covid, and emergencies like it, are entirely the point of fiscal responsibility!
In an emergency, you can max out your credit. If you do that on the regular, for non emergencies, not only will you end up paying an absurd amount of interest, but you won't be able to borrow more when the next emergency happens!
Great ok so we at least agree that issuing currency is not the fiscal equivalent of drinking bleach, and that there are good and bad reasons to do it.
Edit: You CAN drink a small amount of bleach. Just like you CAN print money during a generational event.
A small amount of bleach will burn a bit. A small amount of printing money caused inflation that we also haven't seen in decades. It hurts families now but that's the price we paid to help during covid.
Taxes, then, are disinflationary, right? Which is why we need to tax the rich especially
No, that's not at all how that works.
At all.
Sorry, but if the first claim is that government spending is inflationary, then there's no way to claim that taxes aren't disinflationary.
Lol, wait, what?
Just... Walk me through how you think this would work, say as Canada's inflation rate hit 8% in summer 2022. Who would you have taxed, what would you have done with said taxes and why you think this would somehow lower inflation?
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2019/01/24/modern-monetary-theory-explained
Really just linking this for the diagrams, which are the most succinct explanation for this that I know of - but this is the theoretical basis for what I am talking about
I get the misunderstanding now! I figured it was something similar to this, which is why I asked whom you would tax and what you would do with the taxes.
So, a handful of things. First, this is a theory that is pretty much rejected by almost every mainstream economist (it's rare you see both the Chicago school of economics and Paul Krugman on the same side but here we are.) You might take a quick google at Modern Monetary Theory critiques.
But, ignoring that, if you dive into the theory a bit, you'll see it doesn't work as you've outlined. Looking back to your original point "Dollars are not scarce items; the government can issue currency essentially at will. Taxes aren’t there to fund services. They exist to reduce inequality."
In the MMT, taxes both fund services (say, the CERB) as well as help stabilize inflation. So, in your CERB example, sure, government prints a bunch of money which would cause inflation and then, you're now saying the government should just tax it back to get to a neutral rate. Which, fine, tax the CERB back. But then what was the point of issuing it in the first place? If the answer is "well we just tax the rich" then what's the point of printing a bunch of currency instead of just using the tax proceeds from the rich?
To quote Kelton:
So, to stop the inflation caused by government spending on CERB, we just tax the money back and hold onto it (instead of using it on services, otherwise you're back to the same inflationary pressures.) In essence, you've just changed all the programs from help to those who needed it, to a predatory loan.
Krugman has come around on it over the last few years actually, through discussions with noted MMT proponents Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus. So you might want to search for more recent stuff.
incorrect, in MMT taxes remove money from the economy
In your CERB example, there are a lot of factors involved. One is that there really were supply chain disruptions as spending shifted from services to material goods, combined with a lot of intentional price gouging as inflation narratives took hold.
Neither these phenomena nor the disinflationary effect of taxation are immediate or direct in their effects, so I definitely feel for policymakers when crises like these hit.
But we're now very far from the original point, and you seem to be pointing to an exceptional circumstance to try to prove a generality, as well as trying to claim I'm saying things about that exceptional circumstance that haven't said.
Can you share anything to this end? I've looked and found a couple of interviews with Tankus but nothing that at a glance would seem to change Krugman's assertion that MMT is essentially Calvinball. (I'd rather not read through all their chats.)
Pal, you were the one to bring up Covid/CERB as your first defense of printing money!
But at the end of the day, whether the program happened in a pandemic or not, the core issue remains. Governments have deficits to cover spending, e.g., on public servant salaries. According to MMT, this isn't an issue because you just print money to pay your debts and then tax money out of the system to prevent inflation. Which, groovy but that spending was there for a reason! Like, okay, keep the salaries but then what, just tax everyone else more? You've just created austerity with more steps.
Tankus has blogged about Krugman's evolution.
And my "defense of printing money" was not a judgement about the inflationary pressure of doing so, it was a recognition that there are more things to consider - such as the risk of millions of people being evicted from their homes or going hungry.
You're still trying to put words in my mouth, and you're not engaging earnestly, so, goodbye
(edit: typo)
So nothing from Krugman himself? Seems reasonable...
Lol, yes by quoting you and adding the exact context.
I strongly recommend, just give a quick look at any of the dozens well rounded critiques of MMT. Some may be a little obtuse if you don't have an econ background but feel free to reach out and i'll explain as best I can!
Cheers.
I am pointing to Tankus' blog because he outlines the things Krugman has said.
Second: would you have not issued CERB and had millions lose housing? Or would you issue CERB and accept some inflationary pressure (keeping in mind that much of the inflation was gouging and supply chain issues)? You had made a blanket statement "issuing currency is drinking bleach" and I gave one of many possible examples for why that is a ridiculous statement.
And in terms of your arrogance around understanding what you're talking about:
"Taxes fund services" is flat out wrong from a MMT perspective, quite literally it is the most fundamentally wrong thing one could say about it as an economic framework, so I suggest you develop a better understanding of the thing you claim to understand the critiques of. Or perhaps read critiques from those who actually understand it.
Cheers
Generally speaking, reducing public servants increases consultancy requirements, not reduces.
If you don't have someone with the capabilites/skills/corporate knowledge/experince/capacity to do X thing on the payroll, then you need to hire a consultant to do it.
Now obviously I couldn't tell you what ministry/department/etc needs, but let's take the Alto contract as an isolated example.
We don't have any rail expertise in government at all, so we need to consult it in, and we pay a premium for that. In the lens of a single rail project, that makes a a lot of sense, we aren't paying payroll and maintaining expertise for a once in a generation project.
The alternative is having something like a national rail crown corp or department, like SNCF in France. Now all the experience is at the national level whenever you need it. SNCF has a lot more staff, planning, and engineering capacity than it requires; so that gets farmed out to regions and municipalities to help them with their rail/metro/tram projects. This is instead of each of them needing consultants, driving up the costs for municipal governments/capital projects.
In this manner increased federal spending becomes an accelerant for other levels of government and reduces regional and municipal spending, and thus the overall tax burden for everyone.
So if we had something like SNCF then the Alto project might cost a little more, but the Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montréal recent/ongoing lines would be cheaper; plus medium cities like Victoria, Winnipeg, Québec City, and Halifax would have rail projects in their reach; and smaller cities like Red Deer, Regina, Thunder Bay, Kingston, Trois Rivières, and Fredericton would have tram projects in their reach.
It's not like we'd have rail experts on the public payroll just sitting around.
And one of the mandates is to reduce consultancies (in large part because there's been a lucrative pipeline of folks going through the public service, retiring, and then acting as consultants at a much inflated wage.)
Are all consultancies unnecessary? Absolutely not! But have all of them been necessary? Again, ask anyone who has worked in any sort of governmental agency and they'll laugh as they regale you. (I still don't know wether to laugh or cry at the guy who earned hundreds of thousands with the recommendation of "you should use this basic microsoft product.")