{"id":2048,"date":"2008-11-27T00:57:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-27T05:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2048"},"modified":"2008-11-27T00:57:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-27T05:57:00","slug":"playing-chess-while-everyone-else-plays-checkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2048","title":{"rendered":"Playing chess while everyone else plays checkers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s cut-<span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">throat<\/span>, it&#8217;s conniving, it&#8217;s <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">Machiavellian<\/span>, it&#8217;s underhanded. It&#8217;s being done for no reason other than crass political gains.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s absolutely brilliant politics. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20081126.wfiscal1126\/BNStory\/politics\/home\">Absolutely brilliant<\/a>.<br \/><span style=\"font-family:arial;\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><span style=\"font-family:arial;\"><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family:arial;\">Symbolic cuts to politicians&#8217; perks, temporary relief for pension plans and a political grenade \u2013 ending the $30-million public subsidy to parties \u2013 are expected highlights of Thursday federal economic statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:arial;\">Finance Minister Jim <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\">Flaherty<\/span> will ask the five political parties to give up the $1.95-per-vote subsidy that parties need to pay for staff and expenses.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span><br \/>Right after the election. Dressed up in the cloak of self-sacrifice during tough economic times. Bundled with MP pay cuts and a slew of other symbolic, and popular, moves.<\/p>\n<p>How can the opposition vote against it? Then again, given the stakes, how can they not?<\/p>\n<p>Things&#8230;just&#8230;got&#8230;interesting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s cut-throat, it&#8217;s conniving, it&#8217;s Machiavellian, it&#8217;s underhanded. It&#8217;s being done for no reason other than crass political gains. And it&#8217;s absolutely brilliant politics. Absolutely brilliant. Symbolic cuts to politicians&#8217; perks, temporary relief for pension plans and a political grenade \u2013 ending the $30-million public subsidy to parties \u2013 are expected highlights of Thursday federal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}