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From a recent interview with Stephen Harper,

"Reguly: Do you regret cutting the GST now?

Harper: No, not at all.

Reguly: No?

Harper: No, it's ... First of all, I believe cutting all taxes is good policy, okay? I... I'm of the school that... You know, there's two schools in economics on this, one is that there are some good taxes and the other is that no taxes are good taxes. I'm in the latter category. I don't believe any taxes are good taxes. It's important to remember when we cut the full two points of the GST, the budget was still in surplus. Anyone who says we put the budget in deficit by cutting the GST is wrong. I also think cutting the GST had some important effects. I think it's important to say why it was a good policy, besides fulfilling an electoral commitment to cut the GST, um... besides being a tax cut which as I say is good in and of itself.

...

Reguly: Good."

Apparently, there are two schools of economic thought. One believes that we are better off with some sort of government. The other is explicitly anarchist. Our PM has declared himself an anarchist. The charitable interpretation is that he was simply trying to say that all taxes are the same in their appropriateness but of course this a) doesn't really match what he said very well and b) is almost equally as stupid.

I'm not really posting too much on the politics these days, but I wanted to note this one down just as a marker of where we are now in our discourse on the role of government and the need to pay for it, just how far gone into childish ideology and delusion we really are when our Prime Minister says such things seriously and the only response from our media is 'good'.

Ideology

One of the primary problems with having politicians, such as Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives, that are driven by ideology rather than by careful consideration of each situation is that inevitably they make serious errors trying to make things fit their ideology that just don't fit.

One example was their move to increase competition in the market for providing mortgages to people who can't afford houses. While in many situations, increased competition is a good thing, in this case, not so much, as the government and CMHC will learn to its dismay as the Canadian housing market continues to unravel.

Another example of the same blind adherence to a 'more competition is good' ideology is the attitude of the Conservatives towards the Canadian Wheat Board. While competition between farmers will help lower prices for their products, allowing Canadian farmers the freedom to compete with each other by undercutting the prices they sell their products to foreigners for will not benefit Canadians at all, and will only end up hurting those same farmers who are currently protected from their 'tragedy of the commons' predicament (many small sellers all with the incentives to undercut each others pricing) by the single desk wheat marketing board.

Dave, at Galloping Beaver has more on how, when it comes to ideology, the Conservatives refuse to take success for an answer, and will insist on ideologically pure failure, much like the Soviet communists, instead.