Budget B.S.

We are definately going into an election. The olive branch being extended by the NDP is a farce. Let's examine the reasons why we are going into an election first. 1) Liberal reason: Nothing to lose. The Liberal party is at rock-bottom. The media is and always has been 90% in support of the Liberal party, with the exception of a 3 year period when they were too embarrassed, as in the sponsorship scandal, or when it just wasn't "cool", when Stephane Dion was leader. Despite the retoric, the romper-room commiteee hearings, Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne defrauding Canadian taxpayers, Ruby Dhalla's past (and current) troubles, and oh yeah, that little matter of $41,000,000.00 that hasn't yet been repaid to taxpayers regarding Adscam; the media are keen to look past all that and announce the Conservatives dead in the water because of lapses of ethics that have yet to be proven, at least by a non-partisan judge. The Liberals really don't have anything to lose; they've got nothing now and if they don't win this election, they'll at least draw some attention to themselves with a new leader. Perhaps they'll even have a vote for a new leader this time. Wouldn't that be unprecedented! 2) NDP reason: They think we're stupid. It doesn't matter if Jack Layton was bullied into rejecting the budget due to pressure from his members ( perhaps they put the pressure on his wife Olivia Chow, you know how some of them can be ), he had the choice of standing up to his followers and showing them who was boss. It was him that got them this far. I can appreciate his current stalling for more goodies in the budget. It makes perfect sense in his position. As it stands, he's going to lose more than he can gain. I think he believed that the Conservatives would be so desperate to retain power that he could get away with demanding more. He thought wrong. 3) Bloc reason: They want more, and will probably get more regardless of who forms the government. 4) Conservative reason: The other three parties can't keep complaining about the government without either shitting or getting off the pot. Despite all the flame throwing from the opposition, we actually do live in a democracy and unless a government can be brought in with a majority that has a vision for our future and a roadmap to get there, we'll just keep spinning our tires going nowhere. Let's get this over with. Getting back to the point of the post, I know perfectly well that any sane politician couldn't make changes to this budget to accomodate the NDP. If the changes were made, Jack would vote for the budget and then later vote no confidence on an ethics motion. He could then tell his members that the NDP was capable of making change, both on the budget and on whether or not the government can survive if he deems them unethical. There's no choice now but to have an election. I hope this insanity will end and we'll be able to give the conservatives a five-year test run with a majority government.