Posts Tagged ‘privatization’
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Time to scrap this relic: Ontario’s 1999 Taxpayer Protection Act
The Taxpayers Protection Act set the psychological tone on taxation at Queen’s Park for the next 15 years. It created the political conditions for such a long list of tax cuts that, today, Ontario coffers sacrifice a cumulative of $19 billion a year to the tax cut agenda Harris unleashed in those heady days of right-wing ideology in the late-1990s… Economic resilience starts with examining the revenue tools that have been diminished by years of tax cuts.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
The New Right
Conservatives generally believe that capitalism is a machine that cures itself. Therefore, people on the right have been slow to recognize the deep structural problems that are making life harder in the new economy — that are leading to stagnant social mobility, widening inequality and pervasive insecurity… But… reform conservatives have now published a policy-laden manifesto called “Room to Grow,” which is the most coherent and compelling policy agenda the American right has produced this century.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
On June 12, Ontarians need to get out and vote
… when the political direction could swing dramatically to the right, or veer to the left, it’s far better to register your view on the province’s future. Jobs, education, social services and health care are at risk… unless something changes dramatically overnight, it’s likely that voter turnout will continue its downward slide… While many voters seem uninterested in all options, others are displeased with the negative turn of the campaign… It’s no reason to avoid exercising your personal responsibility to ensure that democracy is upheld.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, Health, ideology, participation, pensions, privatization, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »
Job creation requires a government we can afford
We cannot go on borrowing $4,100 more per family every single year, forever… There’s only one way to balance the budget, and that’s to spend less. When well over half of every dollar of spending goes to salaries and benefits for government workers, spending less means having fewer government workers. That’s why we have said very directly that a balanced budget means going from 1.2 million government workers today to 1.1 million — the number we had in 2009.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Tim Hudak’s Million Jobs Plan is easy to achieve
Lost in the controversy surrounding the accounting details of the Ontario Conservatives’ Million Jobs Plan is the banality of its forecast, if not its ambitions. Adding a million jobs over eight years represents a total gain of 14.5% from the current employment level of 6.9 million. This translates into annual average growth of 1.8% a year… So the Million Jobs Plan takes a half million jobs as its baseline growth of jobs Ontario will add no matter who is in power over the next eight years.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
On Inequality Denial
… inequality denial persists, for pretty much the same reasons that climate change denial persists: there are powerful groups with a strong interest in rejecting the facts, or at least creating a fog of doubt…
the concentration of both income and wealth in the hands of a few people has increased greatly over the past few decades… rags to riches and riches to rags stories are rare — inequality in average incomes over multiple years isn’t much less than inequality in a given year… taxes and benefits don’t greatly change the picture
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Stephen Harper will blow $43 billion this year on tax giveaways
… the Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is losing $43 billion that could be used to boost investments in axed services, build needed national programs, as well as balance the budget and pay down debt… median income taxpayers with kids (averaging between $42,450 and $56,505) would see between 2.8% to 2.9% increase in their after-tax income. But those tax savings can be quickly eaten up by increased costs that would otherwise be covered through public programs.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »
Hudak’s discredited doctrine a lucky break for Wynne
Fixated by their own mechanistic ideology, they blandly expect voters to understand intuitively — or religiously, as they seem to do — that destroying jobs will create jobs and that cutting taxes will increase revenue. It’s all so clear to them. Don’t you see, Ontario? Obviously, Ontario does — Ontario was a guinea pig in the politics of reckless austerity and a pioneer in its rejection.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
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Thomas Piketty: “You do need some inequality to generate growth”
Every command economy in the world in history not only was a disaster in terms of economic growth, but was also a disaster for personal freedom… I want to keep private property and the market system. But I want to make private property and the market system the slave of democracy, rather than democracy the slave of private property and extreme inequality.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, poverty, privatization, rights, standard of living
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Now That’s Rich
… claims that taxing the rich is destructive and immoral — destructive because it discourages job creators from doing their thing, immoral because people have a right to keep what they earn… rest crucially on myths about who the rich really are and how they make their money. Next time you hear someone declaiming about how cruel it is to persecute the rich, think about the hedge fund guys, and ask yourself if it would really be a terrible thing if they paid more in taxes.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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