Jack Mintz: Message to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland: No need to raise taxes

  • 📰 financialpost
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 38 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 18%
  • Publisher: 85%

South Africa News News

South Africa South Africa Latest News,South Africa South Africa Headlines

Canadians facing stubbornly high inflation need a break from governments that raise taxes to make up for their ineptitude. Read more.

From a modest six per cent of GDP in Macdonald’s time the consolidated spending of all levels of government rose to 14 per cent in 1930. With the Great Depression and post-Second World War reconstruction, public spending funded new priorities in transportation, education, health and social services. By 1968, as Pierre Trudeau became prime minister, consolidated public spending exceeded 30 per cent of GDP.

Are governments really that starved for funds that they need an even bigger share of the economy’s resources? Those proposing higher taxes argue we need massive new social programs like a guaranteed income and tens of billions more for climate-change subsidies. Other would-be tax-raisers argue that the COVID debt needs to be paid back, evidently not realizing that inflation has boosted public revenues so much that most provinces are running surpluses and could reduce debt without new taxes.

Before jumping on the bandwagon for higher taxes, people need to take a hard look at public spending. When the Liberals took power, federal spending GDP was 14.3 per cent of GDP. It’s now 17 per cent, 2.7 percentage points higher.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

Let’s fight inflation with raising taxes…

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 7. in ZA

South Africa South Africa Latest News, South Africa South Africa Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

COVID-19 pandemic cost Quebec $28 billion: finance departmentExpenses are planned until 2025, though much less than during the first year of the pandemic.
Source: ottawasuncom - 🏆 4. / 92 Read more »