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There is no perfect economic response for Canada’s coronavirus shutdown
Friday, March 27th, 2020
There’s been a flurry of debate about the best method to get help to individuals in this crisis. Should it be delivered by way of targeted income-support programs, such as the CERB? Should the money instead go to employers, in the form of a wage subsidy, enabling them to keep paying their employees, even if they aren’t doing anything? Or should the government just mail everyone a cheque… the amount depending on their income – a universal, if temporary, basic income?
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, tax
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A wartime economy is a very particular thing
Wednesday, March 25th, 2020
When there is only one economic objective, and everyone agrees what it is, central planning works tolerably well… Good policy ideas that are, for one reason or another, politically impractical at most times often become possible in crises, when the risks and rewards of experimentation are seen rather differently. The baby bonus came out of the Second World War. Perhaps some form of basic income will be the legacy of “World War C.”
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
For both Alberta and Indigenous peoples, now is the winter of our disrespect
Friday, February 14th, 2020
… this isn’t about a mine any longer, or the environment, or the economy: it’s about respect… the closer you approach respect – reconciliation is another word – as an objective, in haste to atone for past sins, the faster it recedes. For without grievances, there is no leverage.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation, rights
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Liberals’ ‘middle class tax cut’ is not a tax cut at all
Wednesday, December 11th, 2019
What we are left with is a $6-billion handout to just about everybody except those who need it most. And all of it is borrowed. With the deficit already in excess of $20-billion and headed higher, the government is proposing to borrow another $6-billion annually, and give much of it to people in the top half of the social register… Unthinkable: Tax cuts for the rich! Maybe. But it sure beats handouts to the rich, doesn’t it?
Tags: budget, economy, featured, tax
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
How do you tell a Conservative from a Liberal? Ask an economist
Friday, September 20th, 2019
Where once the party stood for bold, broad tax reform, it now confines itself to a clutch of micro-targeted “boutique” tax credits, such as for children’s fitness or transit passes: spending programs by another name, of precisely the sort of busy-bodying, social-engineering bent that Conservatives used to disdain, and not very effective even at that.
Tags: economy, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Why you shouldn’t expect to see populism take root in Canada
Friday, July 26th, 2019
Middle class incomes aren’t stagnating in Canada: they’re up a third after inflation from where they were 20 years ago. The share of income going to the “top 1 per cent” is falling, not rising, here, and has been for more than a decade; at 7.3 per cent, after-tax, it is at its lowest level since 1996. Poverty levels are the lowest on record.
Tags: globalization, ideology, immigration, multiculturalism, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Why Conservatives have more at stake than Liberals in Canada’s class war
Tuesday, July 9th, 2019
A society that sneers at tradespeople is a society on its way to the poorhouse… A society that sneers at “so-called experts” is a society on its way to the madhouse… Liberal “virtue-signalling” may flatter the moral vanity of the educated classes, but it is Conservatives who have played the class card more heavily, and with more destructive results. Class wars are always toxic, but class wars organized around “is education a good thing” are suicidal.
Tags: ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Beware gurus with plans to reinvent conservatism
Thursday, July 4th, 2019
Protectionism, then, does not protect our workers against other countries’, nor even workers against consumers, though that is nearer the truth. In reality, it protects some Canadian workers against other Canadian workers. Which workers fall into which group is decided not by how hard either works or the quality or price of what they produce, but by which can most successfully lobby politicians… The conflict… between the interests of consumers and producers, is ultimately illusory.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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What is the problem to which creating a wealth tax is a solution?
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019
The stock of wealth in a country is typically many multiples of the flow of income; its concentration in a few hands is likewise greater. The top one per cent earn roughly 20 per cent of America’s income, but control 40 per cent of its wealth. They also pay 40 per cent of the income tax, but never mind: by taxing their wealth as well, vast sums of money could ostensibly be raised from relatively few people, and at relatively low rates.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Carbon tax smackdown: what is this argument really about?
Saturday, May 25th, 2019
… carbon taxes, so far as they raise the prices of things, impose an especially heavy burden on the poor. That would be a real concern, if the federal government were not also providing rebates covering the cost of the tax… The precedent for this was the GST tax credit, which like the carbon tax rebate more than compensates poor families for whatever it adds to the cost of living…
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, Health, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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