| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] Balanced Budgets ~ "Relevance" | | Date: | Saturday, November 13, 2004 19:36:12 (-0700) | | From: | martinh <martinh @....net>
|
| In reply to: | Message 287 (written by Joe Thomson) |
Just one or two more points on this:
(1) Alberta and BC never had the power to issue their own currency, but
did generate prosperity in their economies by encouraging inflows of
capital from other, less dynamic, provinces. Alberta's Treasury Branch
system was the nearest approach that was possible in those circumstances -
and it has worn very well within its limitations.
(2) I think it is fair to say that Douglas was in favour of a "balanced
budget" - provided that this included the creation of sufficient
additional credit to balance power to consume with power to produce. That
is what the idea of a National Credit Office is about.
(3) Almost from the moment of Aberhart's election, there was disagreement
between himself and Douglas as to the political course to be taken,
arising from the difficulty that Aberhart had no constitutional powers
over banking and currency, such legislation being disallowed, and the
Douglas schemes requiring such powers.
(4) Douglas was, in fact, extremely cynical about political parties,
whether "Social Credit" or otherwise. John Hughes's book on Douglas, which
I do hope I'll get printed before Christmas, discusses this in
considerable and very interesting detail.
Martin Hattersley: 1970-10123-99 St.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 3H1
Phone:(780)423-4081 Fax:(780)425-5247
Website:http://www.edmc.net/~martinh
e-mail: "martinh@edmc.net"
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Joe Thomson wrote:
> (Bill Ryan wrote:-) "From the Populist perspective, governments should tax
> rather than borrow from banks or print their own
> money for spending, except in times of emergency like
> war where the national survival is at stake. Hence,
> the Populists typically advocated "balanced"
> government budgets, as we later saw in the Social
> Credit administrations in Alberta and British
> Columbia. Governments were to be permitted to spend
> only what they could tax with the consent of the
> governed."
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> As Bill correctly notes, both provincial 'Social Credit' administrations ended up strongly advocating the necessity of a 'balanced budget'. Which, in the case of BC's first twenty years of BC 'Social Credit' League government, generally resulted in a yearly 'surplus' of Provincial revenues over expenditures, and an extremely good 'credit rating' for BC Government guaranteed debt instruments. Indeed, it became, and remains to this day, almost a fetish amongst the leadership of the now BC Social Credit 'Party' that budgets must always be balanced
>
> In this, it would seem that there was some divergence from the original tenets of 'social credit'. For we have Douglas's piece on "The Fallacy of a Balanced Budget", his letter to Aberhart, as re-produced in "The Alberta Experiment", admonishing him for committing the Alberta government to a balanced budget, and other passages where he states that there is no necessity for a balanced budget where wealth is constantly increasing.
>
> I doubt that Douglas was advocating 'fiscal irresponibility', but I think he could see what having a 'balanced budget' would do BEFORE the Social Credit financial proposals were in place. Those who were in control of the BC Social Credit government couldn't.
>
> For most of the first twenty years of their administration the on-going post-war 'boom' saved their bacon. BC could produce a balanced budget, year after year, because Provincial government revenues from resource development and exploitation were growing at a tremendous pace. When that finally ended, (it gave up its last gasp in the 1981 recession), the call for a 'balanced budget' became very hard to sell politically, and the 'populist' version of 'Social Credit' as evidenced by the BC Social Credit Party was cast from office by the electorate. It is truly sad that even yet they will not re-consider their position on 'balanced budgets' in light of the original proposals of their adopted name.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
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