If you believe our Con media you might think that the entire country was rising up to fight the Liberal government's plan to make our tax system fairer. If you believe Andrew Scheer, you might think that millions of middle class Canadians are as mad as hell at Justin Trudeau for calling them tax cheats.
Even if he didn't. If you believe Pierre Poilievre, you might think that Canada is in a state of rebellion.
https://t.co/oWIRCpe0V4
Rebellion brewing in N.B. against Prime Minister Trudeau’s proposed tax changes
We know that Andrew Scheer is a sinister religious fanatic. We know that he is a crass misogynist, and an anti-gay and anti-Muslim bigot. We know that he is a creepy demagogue, and a good friend of Ezra Levant. We know that he believes that we should pay to have children home schooled, and that carbon taxes are the work of the devil. But who knew that he is also a flim-flam man?
Well there was Stephen Harper in Quebec yesterday, locking a promise never to raise taxes into a giant safe. Vowing to put a tax lock on our future. Stephen Harper is making a promise to keep his promise.
A re-elected Conservative government would introduce so-called “tax lock” legislation that would prohibit increases to federal tax rates, Harper announced Friday. The gesture is a symbolic one, enshrining in law what Harper has already repeatedly promised and allowing him to say other parties — should they form future governments — would have to break the law in order to raise taxes. And while some wondered whether he got the idea from a Saturday Night Live skit.
It looked like a remake of the 1950s TV show Dialling for Dollars. Or one of those Christian TV programs where the lame are made to walk. But it was only Stephen Harper strutting around a stage in a Jewish school in Julian Fantino's riding. Announcing plans to buy the next election.
As the casinos meltdown, and the bankers run around like firefighters in tuxedos, and I'm forced to contemplate the possibility that the future of the global economy depends on whether the Europeans buy Berlusconi bonds.
Which isn't too reassuring eh?
I think the time has come to simplify this ghastly show, so even the dumbest Canadians i.e. the ones who voted for Stephen Harper, can understand what it's really all about:
(1) The Republican Teabaggers and their Big Business masters are entirely to blame for triggering the latest capitalist convulsion. The Teabaggers want to destroy the government and Obama.
The Big Business porkers want to hose him down for daring to suggest they should pay more in taxes...
Because just the word TAXATION makes them belch and squeal. Like piggies at a sausage factory. Even as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
(2) Sooner of later some politician is going to have to make the case for taxation.
And convince the dumb and the greedy that you can't have the benefits of civilization unless you pay for them.
Or we're all going to end up living in a JUNGLE.
(3) All of the above are just symptoms of a far greater problem. The leaders aren't just clueless, the blind are fighting the blind.
Neoliberalism and free market fundamentalism are both used up, obviously failed dead ends in the world of ideas. Yet the proponents of these ideologies both cling desperately to their beliefs, fighting for control of Washington like two people fighting desperately for an inner-tube as they fall out of a doomed airplane, confident that their preferred version of the same policies will save them from certain death. Meanwhile, progressives have all the parachutes, but are strapped, helpless and curiously irrelevant, into the plane as it careens inevitably into the mountains ahead.
And all the clueless media can do is report on who's winning the seesaw battle for the useless inner-tube, while moaning about how they could both be saved if only they would learn to share it like nice little children.
Yup. It is just kabuki theatre. The economic system that has governed our lives has failed. Just like Communism failed, and another version of the Capitalist system failed before that.
We need to be really clever and come up with a better one, if we are going to survive the challenges of the 21st Century. It's really as simple as that.
And as complicated. Because when you're steeped in the values of a society, the simplest truths are the hardest to see and understand. Just ask the Mayas.
Oh well. Fasten your seatbelts, or hang on to the bar eh?
I believe that the issue of corporate tax cuts can be used to club the Cons like seals in the next federal election.
But I also agree with pollster Bruce Anderson, a lot depends on how you frame the question.
If voters were to decide that the Harper government was trying to line the pockets of fellow Conservatives on Bay Street, they would turn against the idea, no question. But, if they instead see it as part of a general belief on the part of the Harper government that lower taxes produces a stronger economy, they will be more open minded. Even if they don’t fully embrace the ideology, they may respect that the idea comes from place of good intentions.
You could argue that cutting corporate taxes is the least efficient way to stimulate the economy.But the Cons would bring in some renta-economists to argue the opposite. The public would be confused, and the issue would lose much of its sting.
A far more effective approach is to work the issue into a bigger narrative, by looking at WHY the Cons want to cut taxes. So you can show it comes from a dark place of evil intentions. The Con plan to starve government of money, hack it into bloody bits, and turn Canada into a JUNGLE.
Because then you can also remind people that Stephen Harper spent years heading the National Citizens Coalition, that was created to destroy medicare.
That he once vowed to kill it:
"It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."
Stephen Harper 1997.
And ask them if they trust Stephen Harper to save medicare, or do they think he might slowly strangle it?
And I think I know what they'd say eh? Especially after we remind them that a crazed ideologue who could gut a census is capable of ANYTHING.
Or ask them how they would feel about seeing their elderly mother lying in a pool of urine, on a stretcher in a hospital? Because there aren't enough beds or nurses.
Or how would they like their sick child to go to bed hungry in a privatized hospital, because they can't afford the three-meal-a day plan?
Just so the bloated fat cats on Bay Street can get richer, and the ideological maniac Stephen Harper can hack government to bloody bits.
Or, if all else fails, maybe we could just ask the easily fooled whether they really want the porky tale of the Cons to end like this one...
And that's the moral of the story eh?
If they're not careful Canadians could end up in a country they don't recognize.
As Stephen Harper continues to proclaim that we won't need to raise taxes to dig us out of the deficit, even though most serious economists disagree. But nobody dares challenge Great Mad Leader because taxes have become electoral poison, instead of the mark of a civilized society. I think it's about time that Canadians asked these Cons what exactly would they like Canada to resemble?
The extra cuts the governor made Tuesday -- $489 million -- took nearly $80 million that pays for workers who help abused and neglected children; $50 million from Healthy Families, which provides healthcare to children in low-income families; $50 million from services for developmentally delayed children under age 3; $16 million from domestic-violence programs; and $6.3 million from services for the elderly. Among other reductions was $6.2 million more from parks, which could result in the closure of 100, rather than 50, of California's 279 state parks
It is hardly unusual these days for a government building to forgo a fresh paint job or regular lawn care to cut costs. But last week, the director of the Jefferson County public nursing home was told that the county could no longer afford to bury indigent patients. Across town at the juvenile detention center, the man in charge was trying to figure out how to feed the 28 children in his custody when the entire cafeteria staff is let go. In both places they got rid of taxes or froze them, then realized they needed them, but couldn't raise them or bring them back. So as the cracker said: “The big dogs ate all the bones. Now we are all out of bones. The chips are gone, and the poker game’s gone. You can’t play poker without any chips.” Or pay for stuff like medicare in Canada either. Stephen Harper could win the next election by promising not to raise taxes. And then use a fiscal crisis to kill the government he so despises. By first starving it and then hacking it to death.
So the choice is really simple: pay now or REALLY pay later. And make sure Canadians understand that BEFORE an election.Because in the heat of a campaign Great Mad Leader might be able to fool enough ignorant Canadians that he's NOT walking around in his underwear. That taxes really are poison.
And we could lose our future...like he lost his sanity.... before we even KNOW it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.S. And what would Harper's vision of a tax free Canada look like? Oh it would be a real jungle, where NOBODY would be safe. And Cons ran around saying HEY instead of EH....
