Would the same reasoning not apply towards your own proposal for a fitness tax credit? Would it not end up in pockets of regular gym goers and cost everyone else more? If that's the case, is it terrible policy? At it's core, I see nothing wrong with crafting tax policies to reward good behaviour. Perhaps the problem with the transit tax credit is that it's just not big enough to prompt people to switch from cars. That does not mean the idea is all that bad. I can easily see the Liberals expanding on this. I do agree with you, that it should have been coupled with some kind of tax on negative behaviour (increase gas tax maybe?).
Isn't this pretty much the problem with any tax credit that you engineer with rewarding good behaviour? People at the bottom of the income chain are likely to do anything and everything less than people further up. Now I don't mind all tax cuts going to the bottom of the ladder but then I don't want the charade of calling it tax cuts for the middle class. The Liberals did give tax cuts across the board (albeit less at the top). And those middle class cuts could have easily gone into promoting transit. If we are going to give cuts to the middle class, what's wrong with making it conditional on them actually doing something for it?
I definitely agree with you that the idea isn't all that bad. If we're going to allow people to write off their car lease and their gas expenses, it's only reasonable that they be allowed to write off their transit pass, too. I'd have made it refundable, though, if I were going to do it, and I'd prefer to just eliminate the write-off for cars altogether. Write-offs disproportionately benefit the upper class who can afford to hire accountants to figure them all out. Right-wingers have a point when they talk about a flat tax that you can fill out on a postcard. The problem is that they try to lump in removing the brackets, which are really an incredibly simple and beneficial concept, with removing the often-dubious write-offs. I'd obviously keep some for charities and the like, plus benefits like the Child Tax Benefit.
As for increasing the complexity of the tax code, can you imagine how much the Green Shift would have done? That does not mean the ideas don't sometimes have merit. As long as we don't up with a US style tax code that comes in phone book sized volumes, we'll be okay to tinker here and there.
The Green Shift really wasn't particularly complex. It's a standard percentage tax on carbon, offset by across-the-board income tax cuts to the lower brackets and increases to the Child Tax Credit (which, unlike most of these taxes, is refundable).
I agree with this:
Why Canada needed an election this summer
Jun 18, 2009 04:30 AM
Bob Hepburn
Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper are boasting about their agreement unveiled yesterday that keeps the minority Conservative government in power and avoids an election this summer they claim nobody wanted.
"This is a good day for our country," Ignatieff insisted, as he rejected suggestions Harper won this latest parliamentary showdown by forcing the Liberal leader to retreat from his threats to force an early election.
"Do I look steamrollered?" he asked in announcing his deal with Harper to create a powerless working group to look into employment insurance reforms.
The answer is "yes."
That's because Harper is doing an overall lousy job of governing Canada and a summer election was exactly what Canada needed to get the new leadership this country so desperately needs.
In the private sector, management teams that aren't performing and have no realistic plans to turn things around are replaced quickly, regardless of what season it is.
The same standards should apply in Ottawa.
Here's why Canada needed a summer election:
1. The economy: Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have completely misunderstood and mismanaged the current recession. Last November they were predicting rosy times and a budget surplus this year of $800 million. Flaherty is now forecasting the deficit at $50 billion, the largest in Canadian history. The Conservatives only began to come to grips with the recession after the three opposition parties almost toppled them in December.
2. Employment insurance: Huge inequities exist and still Harper won't act to reform the system. Less than 25 per cent of unemployed workers in Toronto can collect EI benefits, and when they do they get fewer benefits than comparable workers elsewhere.
3. Infrastructure money: Harper claims 80 per cent of the infrastructure initiatives promised in the spring budget are already being implemented. That's sheer folly. Across the country, municipal leaders are asking: "Where's the money?" Well, it's tied up in bureaucratic red tape and will take months, if not years, before it results in many new jobs.
4. A dysfunctional Parliament: While hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs, MPs are spending their days yelling at each other about lost tape recorders, Senate reform and get-tough laws on hardened criminals. Indeed, Parliament has not passed a major piece of non-budgetary legislation since the Tories took power in January 2006.
5. Harper's contempt of Parliament: Harper thinks so little of the institution that he released his economic update last week in Guelph – not the House of Commons – with a phony question-and answer session hosted by Mike Duffy, the former TV political reporter who is now a senator.
6. Attitude toward Toronto: Harper and the Tories hate this city. The most blatant example came last week when Transport Minister John Baird told his aides that Toronto officials who were complaining about Ottawa's slow handling of requests for infrastructure money "should f--- off." Imagine the reaction in Calgary, Montreal or Vancouver if Baird had said that about officials there.
It's easy for politicians and pundits to toss around phrases such as "nobody wants an election." Polls easily support their claims, even though pollsters say voters almost never want an election.
It's also easy for many middle-class Canadians, secure in their jobs, to say they don't want a summer election because it would interfere with their vacation or because they don't want to consider "heavy stuff" like public policy when it's nice outside.
For the growing legions of jobless workers, however, a summer election would have been ideal. They need new leadership – and they need it sooner rather than later.
Which is why Ignatieff should have displayed true leadership and taken this opportunity to force the election that "nobody wanted."
Bob Hepburn's column appears Thursdays.
bhepburn@thestar.ca
