« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
It won’t be popular, but we should scrap the homeowner tax break
Friday, July 31st, 2020
Sell your principal residence for more than you paid for it, and in most cases you will pay no tax on the gain at all. Indeed, until 2016 you didn’t even have to report the transaction on your tax return. Neither is there any limit on the exemption – as there is, for example, in the United States. The bigger the gain, the bigger the tax benefit. You can guess which income groups benefit the most.
Tags: economy, housing, ideology, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
The CERB is nothing like a basic income, but it might be the platform we use to build one
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
the possibility that today’s pandemic-induced mass unemployment may continue for longer than anticipated makes reform of income support both more likely and more urgent. And the general idea of a basic income – a single, unconditional transfer, without the intrusive and bewildering eligibility requirements that demean its recipients and leave many others without – remains as valid as ever… The CERB, for all its limitations, has created the precedent for a federal benefit of this kind. Maybe there’s an opening here, after all.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
We can see the way out of the coronavirus pandemic, but the steps to get there will be slow
Monday, April 20th, 2020
There is no easy option… We can tough it out at home, or we can tough it out at work. We can live a little less free, or a lot. We can lose thousands of lives, or tens of thousands; endure slow growth, or a depression. Those are the real choices before us. Either way, it will take months, at least, before we can declare victory.
Tags: economy, Health, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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 | 8 Comments »
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 »
Recent Comments