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Reduce the national sales tax immediately, humm ... I wonder where HE got the idea from?! Reagan, JFK or W!?

Canada Ping!

Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.

Harper is taking the initiative. Unbelievable. ;^)

The guy could win big - 130+ seats. The NDP would have to support the new Tory Government, leaving the Bloc irrelevant.

I can live with this.

Constructive Conservative criticism:

Both sides overselling tiny tax cuts:
But Conservatives' proposed GST cuts are at least more visible than Liberals' plan

The Edmonton Journal
Fri 02 Dec 2005
Byline: Lorne Gunter

Beware of politicians promising tax cuts.

Neither the Liberals' income tax cut plan, announced last month in Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's mini-budget, nor the Conservatives' pledge on Thursday to reduce the GST by two percentage points amount to much relief.

In the current year, Ottawa will extract from Canadians and Canadian corporations nearly $203 billion in taxes. Both the Conservatives and Liberals are pledging to give about two per cent of that back.

Canadian Tire gives back three per cent in Canadian Tire scrip on every purchase.

Both the Conservatives and Liberals are proposing a sort of "thanks for coming" gesture.

On the whole I prefer the Conservative's proposal, though choosing one over the other amounts to splitting hairs.

The Conservatives' cut is much broader based (more Canadians will see cuts), it will stimulate the economy more, it is politically bolder and more immediate.

And it is more tangible.

Canadians will have proof their taxes have been cut every time they go to the checkout. I don't mean they will be thrilled by paying a few cents less each time they buy a pack of gum. I mean they will be able to see that the cut is real, that the amount they pay to Ottawa has actually been reduced.

A cut to the GST is not a cut a government can give on Line 108 of a return and take back secretly by jiggering the marginal tax rates or reshaping a tax credit at Line 309. The Liberals have made grand promises of massive income tax cuts before, such as the "largest tax cut in Canadian history," on the eve of the 2000 election, that turned out to be tiny by the time it had filtered down to working Canadians' pockets.

But neither party is being entirely upfront about the impact of its proposed cuts. Both are exaggerating.

Take, for example, the savings each party claims will accrue to a family of four earning $60,000, which is just about the median Canadian income ($61,000).

In his mid-November tax-cut pledge, Goodale claimed such a family would save 20 per cent on its returns this year. But upon closer examination, it is obvious almost no families would save that much.

If your family of four is making $60,000 and if it has two income earners, and if those two are both making less than $35,000, and if they are maxing out their child care deductions, and if they have no non-refundable tax credits such as student loans or charitable donations, then the amount of tax they currently pay would be $2,514.

In those rare cases, the $499 Goodale proposes to trim from tax bills this year would, indeed, be a 20-per cent reduction.

But the median Canadian family pays closer to $8,200 in federal income taxes each year. And the savings for them under the Liberal plan are likely to be closer to $350 a year, not $499. So they will save four per cent, not 20. Liberal tax relief would amount to less than $30 a month.

Similarly, on Thursday, Conservative leader Stephen Harper insisted our mythical family of four would save $400 in the first year of a Conservative government because his party would immediately cut the GST from seven per cent to six. (It would follow this up by reducing the rate to five per cent over the four years after that.)

However, for a one-per cent reduction on the GST to amount to $400 over a year, our family would have to spend $40,000 after taxes, rent and basic groceries, none of which incur GST. What family of four earning $60,000 a year has $40,000 in disposable income?

Oh, yeah, the same non-existent family Goodale claims is paying just $2,500 in federal income tax.

For families earning $60,000 in the real world, the first stage of the Conservatives' GST trim will probably save around $300 a year, or about $50 less than the Liberals'.

I still believe more Canadians would see more of the Conservatives' cut.

Liberal tax reductions have a way of disappearing down the memory hole.

Free-market economists cringe at talk of reducing consumption taxes such as the GST rather than income taxes. (The Conservatives have promised to promise income tax cuts later in the campaign.)

The theory is that consumption taxes are less economically distorting than income taxes. They do less than personal income taxes to discourage saving and hard work, and less than corporate taxes to discourage investment.

Still, all taxes have a dampening effect on the economy. When we are debating which is better, consumption or income tax, we are really talking about which is less bad.

So I am unpersuaded by claims that the Conservatives' GST-cut pledge will come back to haunt a Conservative government because it will mean reducing an economy-boosting tax while leaving in place economy-dragging income taxes.

This argument ignores the psychology of tax reductions. If people see that they are paying less tax, they will spend more. Since the Liberal cuts are barely visible and the Conservative cuts highly visible, the two-point GST trim is likely to have more economic impact.

But both parties' plans are still too small to get excited about.

The deranged Dominion has a lot of things that need fixing. To get into office the Tories need to concentrate on four things:

1. Cut Taxes!
2. Government reform
3. Bring the crooked Grits to justice.
4. Rebuild the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force - Including restoring their separate names, identities, and traditions.

The other things, gay marriage, a triple-E senate, etc. can wait until they have a majority. The important thing now is te form a government, even a minority one, and prove to the Canadian public that the Grits are not the only option.

There is nothing more annoying than buying an appliance and having to pay $100 more extra for tax. I would like to see the rate of the tax reduced even further for amounts over $1000.00.