Читать книгу Northern Light: Lessons for America from Canada's Fiscal Fix - Robert P. Murphy - Страница 21

Perhaps the most important lesson of all from Canada isn’t what they did, but rather how they did it. We can distill six political lessons from Canada’s reform program of the 1990s.

1.Focus on reform is required across party lines. Progress on the deficit only became possible when Canadian parties ceased to treat it as a matter of partisan contention, but rather of vital national interest.

2.Politicians can’t play favorites with reform, carving out exemptions for their friends and socking it to their opponents. If fixing the deficit is a challenge for the nation, then the whole nation has to be called upon to contribute.

3.Time is of the essence. Proceeding piecemeal instead of broadly and decisively undermines the wide social consensus necessary, and would have delayed the handsome pay-off that Canadians enjoyed once they had broken the back of the deficit.

4.Reforms must be carried out intelligently and humanely. Canadians accepted that the policy was fair, and that mattered a great deal to them.

5.A simple, easy to understand target is crucial to maintaining public support. When Canada set a goal to eliminate the deficit, the nation eagerly awaited each budget and took great pride in reaching that goal.

6.If you get all the other elements right, the supposedly insurmountable institutional obstacles to reform often prove to be paper tigers.

What American politicians most need to know from the Canadian experience is that thoughtful reform, cleverly managed, paid handsome political dividends: The Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien that introduced these changes was handily re-elected in 1997 and 2000, and reforming provincial governments in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan enjoyed similar success.