Posts Tagged ‘tax’
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Trudeau is talking sense amid deficit hysteria
If the private sector is reluctant to spend because of uncertain growth prospects, then clearly some other sector needs to pick up that slack. At a time of contracting global growth, exports clearly can’t pick up the baton of growth. That leaves the government and, yes, a budget deficit or two, if that’s what it takes to restore economic growth… Like much of the rest of the world, Canada has an economy that is operating below capacity; people who need work; stores that need customers; infrastructure that needs rebuilding.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Make health care an election issue
When provinces deliver good health care, they take the credit; when they are unable to do so, they blame Ottawa for not transferring them enough money. Promises not only come with a price tag, but siphon money from other priorities, all without delivering political payback… this crisis will take 20 years to fully hit us. Like a tsunami, it still looks small while it’s on the horizon…
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health, privatization, tax
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
A Moveable Glut
… excess savings and persistent global weakness is the new normal… Wall Street doesn’t want to hear that an unstable world requires strong financial regulation, and politicians who want to kill the welfare state don’t want to hear that government spending and debt aren’t problems in the current environment… They don’t like being told that we’re in a world where seemingly tough-minded policies will actually make things worse. But we are, and they will.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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In federal election, health care is far from urgent
… total health care spending in Canada now represents about 11% of the country’s gross domestic product… That’s up from 9% of GDP in the mid-1990s and 7% in the 1970s… Publicly funded health care makes up about 70% of total health care spending in Canada… about the same as it was in 1997… Nobody wants to talk about real reform to the system because it’s too complicated, too sticky and too cumbersome to message on.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living, tax
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Why Stephen Harper trumpets boutique tax credits
When Harper announces a tax credit for child care or home renovations, he sees himself as supporting the paradigmatic “little platoon,” the family. When he announces a tax credit for kids playing minor hockey, that’s another little platoon, one teaching citizenship, good nature and loyalty almost as a side effect. And a service club is, in the conservative view, another little platoon, binding small communities to the world in a great network of philanthropy.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Narrowing the inequality wage gap
Up to now, top CEOs’ salaries are routinely compared with each other – which instead of naming and shaming companies that award the stratospheric pay, has created a super-elite club of managers who can trumpet the revelations as proof of their market worth… its overall effects can only be salutary in an environment where inequality has become an economic illness… With the slashing or repealing of inheritance taxes in the wealthy OECD countries, vast salaries are now converted to legacies for heirs who can use them for powerful political and economic leverage.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
A referendum on Stephen Harper and his meaner Canada
Harper’s virtues… can be plainly seen in his successful attempt to roll back the federal government’s capacity to use its spending power to influence the lives of Canadians… His strategy as prime minister is to starve the federal government of resources by limiting spending, delivering benefits through the tax system rather than through programs, and cutting taxes wherever he could. Weaken the federal government enough fiscally and no future prime minister could ever again contemplate building a Just Society.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Helping students, without burdening everyone else
Student loans are usually tied to financial need, in order to make post-secondary education available to the greatest number of people. But this isn’t a good argument for removing the obligation for students to pay the money back. At least with a loan, the liability is funded, even if that money takes time to come back to government coffers… if non-repayable grants become an expectation of government, there will be pressure for all provinces to provide them, including ones that cannot afford to do so.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, tax, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
The neocon politics of cynicism and despair
Amongst the most persistent and egregious oft-repeated myths perpetrated by neocons is the one that they are the best stewards of the economy and that cutting taxes is the way to improve the financial health of Canada. The lion’s share of these tax cuts always go to the private sector and the wealthy while the messaging is tax cuts for the middle class… A second mantra of neocons is cutting the wasteful cost of government. This is how tax cuts are paid for and is code for their dedicated bias towards the dismantling of government, social programs and social opposition to Conservative policies…
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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