3 profiles in political cowardice: 'Whipped' by HST

Quote:

But at the end of day, Martin was still hiding in his office when he had a chance to take a stand for democracy - and vote against a tax the vast majority of British Columbians despise.

Michael Smyth

Interesting.  Rex Murphy picked Keith Martin and Peter Stoffer as the 2 best MP's in Parliament last night.

Esquimalt-Juan De Fuca could fall to the NDP, Randall Garisson (the 2004 and 2006 candidate) almost beat Martin. Jennifer Burgis the NDP's 2008 candidate is the one who lost ground. Keep in mind that the NDP holds the provincial ridings that make up this federal riding, by quite safe margins. Though I agree that the NDP likely doesn't stand a chance in Vancouver South.

A lot of our BC campaigns lost ground last time, thanks to the candidate fiascos.  That drove the freed-up Liberals right into the arms of the Conservatives.  I take it we'll be doing a MUCH better job screening this time.

Check out who missed the vote in the Ontario legislature:

Missing Liberals MPPs:
Margaret Best (cabinet)
Jim Brownell
Kim Craitor
Bruce Crozier
Bob Delaney
Vic Dhillon
John Gerretsen (cabinet)
Pat Hoy
Ted McMeekin (cabinet)
Steve Peters
Sandra Pupatello (cabinet)
Khalil Ramal
Tony Ruprecht
George Smitherman (formerly in cabinet)
Greg Sorbara (formerly in cabinet)
Dalton McGuinty (Premier)
 
Missing Conservative MPPs:
Randy Hillier (banned)
Bill Murdoch (banned)
Christine Elliott
Others?
Missing NDP MPPs:
Peter Kormos (ill)
France Gelinas (weather)

Steve Peters is speaker so he can't vote anyways. I'm no sycophant for the grits but he he simply couldn't vote.

 Huh, I wonder why he wasn't there even if he couldn't vote. Perhaps it was a statement by not being there (abstentions are the new nay vote?) Smitherman is on the way out anyway (but this will probably be rehashed in the mayoral race next year.) I can probably see Pupatello, Ruprecht, will probably go down in flames in '11, to the NDP. Hudak, will probably not escape the link to Harris, I seriously doubt most people wouldn't want to go back to those days. Plus I don't see the antics of Billy Murdoch and Randy Hillier as an asset. 

Its only dumb if the party loses votes from it - and judging from what happened in the New Westminster-Coquitlam byelection - that seems very unlikely.

LOL

Sorry, but I am not buying into this study.

To believe this study is to believe that the Gas companies will lower prices when the HST comes into effect.  Because crap like that is also in studies.

There is a minor advantage in implementing the HST for business. But this is just one variable. 

To suggest that the HST isn't a tax grab is laughable.  Of course it is a tax grab.  There is a windfall for government.

The Centre for policy alternatives can write whatever it likes as I am sure they are all struggling to make ends meet.

What I do find interesting is that the study doesn't create a policy alternative but supports the continuation of neo liberal economic policy.

The HST gives us the worst of both world's - it riles people about taxes and causes government to spend vast amounts of political capital defending an unpopular new tax - BUT, all the money raised by HST goes into the hands of large businesses and it doesn't mean one red cent for government to use on health and education etc... because its supposed to be "revenue neutral". If the public is going to wave pitchforks and have a tax revolt - why not at least have it be over a tax reform that actually gives ythe government more money to do good things - as opposed to over something that only shifts money from citizens to businesses.

Accidental deliberations makes a good point:

"One can understand why the CCPA's study on the HST might have been designed at one time to assume that other tax moves designed to minimize the pain of shifting the tax burden onto individuals would be linked to harmonization. But considering that the McGuinty government has declared that the other changes will happen regardless of whether or not the HST is implemented, doesn't any accurate calculation now have to involve the effect of the HST on its own rather than tossing in credit for what would happen with or without harmonization?"

Here's a Dona Cadman update:

After skipping the HST votes, Cadman told the Surrey Leader she had been disciplined by Government Whip Gordon O'Connor for speaking out and told to "smarten up."

A spokesman for Cadman said she would not be doing further interviews on the subject.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Cadman+absence+rare+moment+Tory+dissent...

Stockholm wrote:

Its only dumb if the party loses votes from it - and judging from what happened in the New Westminster-Coquitlam byelection - that seems very unlikely.

Yes, a party can often gain votes by appealing to the lowest-common-denominator i.e. the anti-tax crowd.  Um, congratulations NDP?

The thing that I think is important is the fact that the status-quo is nothing to cheer for - right now a lot of money is wasted dealing with the bookkeeping, paper work and other transactions costs associated with keeping track of two separate sales taxes.  The point of the changes is not even to impose a "new" tax, but merely to rationalise and simplify how the current federal and provincial taxes are collected.  Yes, this simplification will inevitably mean applying the new harmonised tax to things that weren't previously taxed by one of the separate taxes, but at the same time it allows businesses and government to realise some savings by eliminating the transaction costs of dealing with two separate taxes.

I don't think it's all that big a deal that it doesn't, all on its own, lead to increased tax revenues.  That's not its purpose.  Not to mention that people are completely ignoring the fact that the reason it doesn't increase tax revenues is that it will be coupled with increased cash transfers to reduce the tax burden on lower-income earners (as illustrated by CCPA's report).

For all I know, the CCPA's analysis may be correct that poor folks come off better but I have three key questions:

What is the net effect on those in the 2nd income tax bracket (e.g. the middle class)? They see no reduction in their personal income taxes and thus I'm wondering if they don't lose money on net given that the transition tax credits vanish after the first year. Also, the idea that the cost of the HST will decrease over time is also strange to me, as HST is charged as a percentage of sales price and prices tend to go up or stay the same, and rarely ever go down. Finally, there is the white elephant in the room of the deficit. As long as the deficit is on the books, the province is paying interest and accumulating debt that will need to be paid down in the future. As the bulk of the provincial tax base is the middle class, McGuinty's spending & whirling dervish dance on tax cuts today is a major tax liability for the middle class (as the primary tax payers) in the future. So really, there's no free lunch to be had here, nor is implementing the HST going to be free- there will be menu costs. If energy prices ramp up again with the recovery in the economy, McSquinty may come to regret this tax, because the pressure is going to be on business (and consumers) to respond to the higher cost structure. All in all, no easy decisions to be made here.

These figures are fudged  so you know the pain is going to be far worse... in the real world.

If the CCPA's report is so poorly thought out, and the numbers cherry picked, then share the numbers you have used to come to your conclusions.

A_J wrote:

If the CCPA's report is so poorly thought out, and the numbers cherry picked, then share the numbers you have used to come to your conclusions.

Well there are problems with the CCPA numbers, but if you would like to actually read what I wrote you will find I was talking about the approach they used cherry picking parts of a package and ignoring others.

I haven't seen you around many of these HST threads, so I will repeat this for you.  In the 3D world I have been sitting in on government consulations in relation to a certian economic sector since the budget announcement.   In fact you can find media quotes from me if you knew where to look coming out of the lock up the day the budget was released questioning the government's plan and the impact it would have on the economic sector I work in and hold a position in.

We had to comitt to not publicly releasing much of the data we were presented.  (So I won't do it here because it would violate that agreement and out me) However, for the sector I have been involved with the government has claimed a multi-million dollar saving for the sector.  That is true on the face of it, but if you go deeper into the numbers they start to not add up.  It has been clear to me that many of my sector cohorts extolling the virtues of the HST have not done a deeper analysis.  From my reading of the CCPA report they did the same thing giving no consideration to the wider implications of the HST and dramaticlly underestimating the impact on those of low, modest and middle incomes.

The HST MUST be seen as a package of tax changes.  Those changes are a dramatic shifiting of tax burdens in Ontario.  Unlike the harmonization of the taxes in the Maritimes the HST in Ontario (and that is the only jurisdiction I can speak to) the entire package will not be revenue neutral for government.  They will in actuality, over the life of the package they introduced with the budget, be bringing in less money because the cuts to corporate taxes are larger than the amount shifted off of them to individuals.  That is assumng even modest growth.  With sustained growth the gap will be even larger.  That means government is shifting taxation resposibility much more to individuals AND will have less money to spend on roads, sewers, schools, hospitals and all the things we need to keep a reasonably progressive society functioning in Ontario.  (For those who think these tax cuts for business will result in more jobs let's remember not a single string is attached and even though Ontario has a very competative tax rate we still saw massive job losses during this downturn.  Tax is the problem for job losses or the solution for job growth - targeted investments in upgrading technologies and worker skill sets would have a much bigger impact for instance.)

For the life of me I can not understand a single progressive person claiming this tax shift is a good idea when those with the least will be paying more for such necesities as heat, hydro, fuel to get to work and many other things.  This is not a progressive taxation scheme and frankly shame on those who are aiding and abetting the Liberals on this.

HST

What is GST?

What is PST?

Does G + P = H?

It's all algebra.

Sweet home.  WIth a couple of kids running in the yard of Desmond and Molly Jones.  Hey, happy ever ....

"Another issue was sign delivery."

I'm very sceptical about whether something as trivial as sign delivery would have a major impact on election results. I've seen many campaigns win the sign war by a mile and get crushed when the ballot boxes are opened. If the NDP lost a seat by 100 votes i might be willing to accept blaming it on not having enough signs - but you don't lose entire chunks of province-wide popular vote because you don't have enough lawn signs.

Oh, dear. 

This isn't going to end well.

I just know it.

I am Jesus Christ.

Discuss.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

The HST MUST be seen as a package of tax changes.  Those changes are a dramatic shifiting of tax burdens in Ontario.  Unlike the harmonization of the taxes in the Maritimes the HST in Ontario (and that is the only jurisdiction I can speak to) the entire package will not be revenue neutral for government.  They will in actuality, over the life of the package they introduced with the budget, be bringing in less money because the cuts to corporate taxes are larger than the amount shifted off of them to individuals.  That is assumng even modest growth.  With sustained growth the gap will be even larger.  That means government is shifting taxation resposibility much more to individuals AND will have less money to spend on roads, sewers, schools, hospitals and all the things we need to keep a reasonably progressive society functioning in Ontario.  (For those who think these tax cuts for business will result in more jobs let's remember not a single string is attached and even though Ontario has a very competative tax rate we still saw massive job losses during this downturn.  Tax is the problem for job losses or the solution for job growth - targeted investments in upgrading technologies and worker skill sets would have a much bigger impact for instance.)

For the life of me I can not understand a single progressive person claiming this tax shift is a good idea when those with the least will be paying more for such necesities as heat, hydro, fuel to get to work and many other things.  This is not a progressive taxation scheme and frankly shame on those who are aiding and abetting the Liberals on this.

So it's shifting taxes away from businesses and incomes and towards consumption.  That sounds a lot like the Nordic model of taxation (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc.).

There's nothing wrong with this kind of taxation, and it doesn't necessarily preclude raising the necessary funds, even if the current rates (13% for HST, whatever they are now for income/profits) don't do that right now.  Whether this raises the necessary funds is a separate issue from whether it makes sense to harmonise the taxes and realise some savings by cutting out a lot of duplication and transaction costs.

I find it interesting that the Report in Manitoba states that the HST will cost Manitobans an extra $405 million  if implemented.  At least the Manitoba government is being truthful about the Tax.  

The Conservatives are running a $60 Billion dollar deficit, which rivals Mulroney. The Ontario Liberals are running a deficit 3X the Rae Government.   These governments require taxes to function and they are going to get that money by getting blood from the stone.  

And it appears that the Conservatives and Liberals want to balance their books on the backs of our Seniors.

Yes, the CCPA is right in cutting through the rhetoric.  

From a BC perspective, the Liberals deserve to be hung out to dry in regards to lying about the tax and announcing it within weeks after an election. The HST hurts affluent Liberal voters much more than it does NDP voters.

However, the NDP have also been lying about the impacts of the HST to score political points. If it wins them some seats, I guess they met their goal.  Just don't accuse the NDP of basing their policies on principles. 

We can't seem to get an honest debate in BC.  And while I generally like Michael Smyth, he is starting to sound like less like a serious journalist and more like Glen Beck with his ongoing rants.

The HST will hit the middle class slightly, may hurt restaurant owners, and will punish those who pay for senior's care or who put their children in day camps. I doubt whether restaurants will suffer that much from the GST, as the people who eat out often tend to me upper middle class but, some may.

However, the generous tax credits will sends cheques to students, the poorest families and others will come out ahead through the tax credits.

Most businesses will have little gains. Any company that resells goods (like Walmart, etc) will see no benefits.  

The companies that will see benefits are mainly manufacturing companies that have to pay tax on raw materials or parts that they intent to engineer. In these ways, the HST does help the Canadian manufacturing industry when they are competing with the US or Chinese companies.

This may create some more union jobs here, or improve Canadian productivity.  The NDP calls for bailouts for the manufacturing and forest industry quite often, but then damn's them when something does happen.  

There are problems with the HST, in that the federal government limits exemptions to 5% of the tax base which forced provinces to give up some of their exemptions.  Some of the exemptions lost are very disappointing.  Exemptions on bikes, green housing renos, and others really suck.

However, the best thing to do is actually introduce some federal exemptions to the HST, since the GST currently applies to some items that would be better off not taxed. 

Stockholm wrote:

Accidental deliberations makes a good point:

"One can understand why the CCPA's study on the HST might have been designed at one time to assume that other tax moves designed to minimize the pain of shifting the tax burden onto individuals would be linked to harmonization. But considering that the McGuinty government has declared that the other changes will happen regardless of whether or not the HST is implemented, doesn't any accurate calculation now have to involve the effect of the HST on its own rather than tossing in credit for what would happen with or without harmonization?"