The BIG election question!
We are in the last stages of the election and I cannot understand how any thinking voter has not taken the Green party to task for its bizarre fiscal policy. They propose, correct me if I am wrong, to eliminate all progressive taxation and replace it with consumption and pollution taxes. In the case of Ontario I believe that the budget is about 80 Billion dollars, Where in tarnation do they think that there is the potential to tax polluters, without driving the economy into the ground, and enough consumption to raise the money needed to run the province?
If anybody can explain this to me in three sentences please do so now or I will have to describe the policy with many more harsher adjectives than bizarre.
If anybody can explain this to me in three sentences please do so now or I will have to describe the policy with many more harsher adjectives than bizarre.
6 comments:
The Green Party plans to shift taxes in a revenue-neutral fashion, which means moving taxes off the good and onto the bad ("Pay for what you burn, not what you earn"). This approach does not call for the complete elimination of progressive taxes, but rather a gradual and proportional decrease in individual and business income taxes, health care taxes, etc., as consumption and pollution taxes increase.
The Green approach balances environmental needs with fiscal and social realities without threatening the economy because, while the taxes on fuel, energy and other resources will increase, reflecting their true cost to society, parallel decreases in income and business taxes would free up money elsewhere in the economy. In addition, the platform includes measures to protect low-income Ontarians from higher energy costs.
In a nutshell, the Green Party plan will bring in the same number of tax dollars, but some – not all – will come from different sources, in a way that encourages efficiency and environmental responsibility, and discourages waste and pollution.
So my income tax bill will go down but my hydro bill, of which I have no control over unless I dress in two sweaters and run a wood stove, will go up?
So the poorer folk in rural Ontario that need cars to get anywhere will now have to pay more for fuel and the tax cut they will get based on miserable incomes is supposed to balance, somehow I don't see this.
How long will the rebalancing take and if it is as "revenue neutral" as the last RN exercise then I reserve the right to be cynical.
This economic policy has to be exposed for what it is - a right wing libertarian conservative ploy designed to slip under the radar of the average voter conned by the magic words - "Green"
Do you really have no control over your hydro bill? Do you have an aversion to sweaters? Do you think industry has no control over energy consumption either, so they shouldn't be encouraged to conserve? Clearly you prefer the left wing, overly bureaucratic, NDP ploy to keep income taxes high, energy prices low and the environment in a shambles.
I have no aversion to sweaters just having to wear two because I already have on on. My programmeable thermostat controls my high efficiency furnace (purchased over 20 years ago) and my house does not a socket with an incandescent bulb. So you see I have been in the vanguard of conservation, just don't boast about it. Where eles is ther to save as a householder? The next stage for personal conservation is structural and beyond my control. So before you go tarring people with an offensive broad brush perhaps you should be aware of some of the facts. And if you look at the NDP policy you will find the platform does not fill the charges you make. High energy prices contribute to the loss of the manufacturing base. Just ask the mill owners up north what damage haigh hydro prices have done to them!
I would love to conserve more bbut I object to having to pay artificially high energy prices just to fill an ideological bent.
Energy prices are now artificially low, so changing that would not make them artificially high, just realistic.
Not wanting to flog a dead horse on this one hydro rates are not lower; they are above the actual cost of production by about 1 cent per KW.
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