Posted on 04/08/2010 3:09:12 AM PDT by Clive
Ever since the global economic collapse, the left has been pushing the idea Canadians have lost faith in the private sector and are ready to accept a greater role by government in their lives.
Part and parcel with this view is their contention Canadians are ready to pay higher taxes for good government services, as argued by Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in Wednesday’s Toronto Star.
In a column headlined “Canadians no longer see red over prospect of higher taxes,” Campbell contends “taxes appear to be coming back into fashion,” and not just with the left, based on the following examples.
(1) Almost three in five Canadian CEOs surveyed said the country needs higher taxes to get into the black.
(2) Former Liberal finance minister John Manley said it’s time to raise the GST.
(3) Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said at the end of the recent Liberal thinkfest that Canada can’t afford to rush ahead with any more corporate tax cuts.
So, apparently, in Campbell’s world, some CEOs and a couple of Liberals represent “Canadians.” Right.
From this thin gruel, Campbell claims: “For the first time in more than 15 years, Canadians are beginning to rethink the tax cut agenda that dwarfed all other public policy discussions,” that “Canadians are finally starting to have an adult conversation about taxation — instead of only seeing red” and that this “is a healthy sign (which) bodes well for Canada’s future.”
Campbell would end Conservative corporate tax cuts (translation, raise corporate taxes), impose a surtax on those earning more than $250,000 and reverse Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s GST cut.
While making the rich pay is standard left-wing rhetoric, calling for reversing the GST cut is surprising, given the left has traditionally argued sales taxes are regressive and hit the poor hardest.
Inconsistencies aside, it’s true the public has lost faith in the private sector due to the corporate greed and “race to the bottom” mentality on display before, during and after the global economic crash.
But what the left never admits is Canadians are just as skeptical of Big Government as Big Business.
They know, to cite Campbell’s examples, that when governments raise corporate taxes, they end up taking the hit as consumers — including the GST.
They know, when governments want to raise serious money through income tax hikes, “taxing the rich” isn’t enough, because there aren’t enough rich, and the middle class inevitably takes the hit.
As for being willing to pay higher taxes for better government services, that assumes Canadians believe higher taxes automatically lead to better services, which is absurd.
It’s why special-interest-group polls claiming people favour paying higher taxes for, say, better health care, are meaningless, because they never ask the follow-up question — do they believe higher taxes will lead to better care?
In the real world, beyond left-wing rhetoric, Canadians don’t object to paying taxes. They object to paying ever-higher taxes and seeing no improvement in services, and often, the reverse, amid massive government waste.
But if Campbell seriously believes Canadians are ready for higher taxes, let him convince, say, the Liberals, to run on, say, a carbon tax, in the next election.
And we’ll see what happens. Oh wait … we already know.
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Sounds like the commie rats in the white house. Sig heil every one.
Except that for the time being our liberals are the opposition party, not the government.
Except that for the time being our liberals are the opposition party, not the governing party. Hopefully their attitude toward taxing and spending will help to keep it that way.
It’s hard to imagine Canadians could pay any more taxes.
I have spoken to guys in Quebec who were shelling out more than 60% of their income in federal and provincial taxes.
And I have been at malls in Michigan on Sunday afternoons when 90% of the plates in the parking lot were from Ontario.
(They were paying 15% sales tax/GST on everything at home...at the time Michigan’s sales tax was 4%)
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