{"id":1461,"date":"2012-04-20T18:47:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T22:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2012-04-20T18:47:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T22:47:18","slug":"horwath-needs-to-read-her-machiavelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/horwath-needs-to-read-her-machiavelli\/","title":{"rendered":"Horwath needs to read her Machiavelli"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Andrea<\/a>Andrea Horwath needs to do some more reading before she decides to negotiate further with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Specifically, she needs to read more Machiavelli. The Prince<\/em>, in particular.<\/p>\n

This week the Globe & Mail<\/a> reported that Horwath announced that, “…NDP Leader Andrea Horwath (is) now abandoning another major proposal in return for her party\u2019s support of the governing Liberals\u2019 budget, it will be easier for the two sides to strike a deal.”<\/p>\n

Her “proposal” – actually a demand in exchange for the NDP’s support of the Liberal budget – was to remove the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax from home heating bills. Her plan would have given tax relief to millions of Ontario homeowners.<\/p>\n

Instead, she chose to drop that demand and decided to push for the government to tax the rich more.<\/p>\n

Wrong, wrong, wrong <\/strong>strategy. The rich are few. The people are many. Horwath has not read her Machiavelli otherwise she would have chosen differently. She chose to abandon her strength (the people) while attacking those few (the rich) who are not her supporters anyway. Bad choice. Start the countdown to the NDP leadership review…<\/p>\n

In Chapter IX of The Prince<\/em>, Machiavelli wrote what Horwath should be reading:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026a prince can never protect himself from a hostile people, because there are too many of them. But he can secure himself from the nobles, as they are few in number.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McGuinty will balk, because the Liberal party (as well as the Conservative party) get much of their financial support from the upper-middle to upper class. The NDP, however, get their financial backing from unions, and working class families, who are the majority of voters. The working class families will be hurt by the HST on fuel bills, but not helped at all by the tax on the rich. <\/p>\n

McGuinty doesn’t want to tax the rich, probably because he HAS read Machiavelli, who wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him. The nobles have more foresight and cunning. They always act in time to save themselves, and to seek favours from him whom they expect to win.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"WorkingEven if the rich are taxed more, they won’t care because it’s a temporary annoyance. The NDP will never get into power, so the rich will back the party that promises to repeal those extra taxes next election – and odds are McGuinty will promise that next campaign if he is forced to concede that demand to Horwarth to save his rule.<\/p>\n

McGuinty surely realizes that the worst he can lose is an election. But if he saves his backers, he will still have a chance to rise again with their funding. Horwath doesn’t get it. Pushing for a new tax bracket for the super rich doesn’t matter to the public except as a token gesture. It doesn’t help the average homeowner, the working stiff, the seniors and those people struggling on a small fixed income. <\/p>\n

The NDP had the power to gain a significant concession from the minority Liberals and bend the budget to their alleged goals as the party of the working class. Plus a chance to win huge accolades and public affection. Instead, Horwath dropped the ball and has left the Liberals to continue to pummel working class taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Damn. Who will stand up for us now the NDP have betrayed the working class? My recommendation for NDP supporters: deduct the amount of the provincial portion of the HST on your home heating bills from any future donation you make to the party. That will send an unmistakeable message to the NDP’s leaders who chose to pursue this strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Andrea Horwath needs to do some more reading before she decides to negotiate further with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Specifically, she needs to read more Machiavelli. The Prince, in particular. This week the Globe & Mail reported that Horwath announced that, “…NDP Leader Andrea Horwath (is) now abandoning another major proposal in return for her party\u2019s support of the governing Liberals\u2019 budget, it will be easier for the two sides to strike a deal.” Her “proposal” – actually a demand in exchange for the NDP’s support of the Liberal budget – was to remove the provincial portion of the harmonized \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,58,10],"tags":[104,133,81,61],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal-and-provincial-politics","category-history","category-municipal-politics","tag-machiavelli","tag-ndp","tag-ontario","tag-politics"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":9015,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}