No politician in Canada, and few in the rest of the world, can get elected these days on a tax-and-spend platform. But that doesn't stop left-wing think tanks from trying to make a case for a return to the perceived halcyon days of yore, when happy citizens forked over a large chunk of their earnings to beaming politicians, who in turn provided efficient and effective public services. The op ed page of today's Toronto Star has a piece on these lines, by a father-and-son team named Himelfarb.
It's not clear to me that people are opposed to taxation per se; rather, they've lost faith that politicians will keep their side of the bargain by using public money wisely. A look back at the past several decades here in Canada provides ample grounds for this skepticism, and there are similar tales to be told in other rich countries.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Canadian taxation rates were relatively low, yet governments were able to construct a social safety net, establish medicare and create all kinds of infrastructure, especially highways, all without going into debt. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, it all started to go wrong. Taxes were on the rise and so was public borrowing, yet services began to erode and it proved harder and harder even to maintain the infrastructure, let alone add more.
The 1990s saw the worst of all possible world for most Canadians. Marginal income tax rates were well north of 50 percent even on relatively modest incomes, yet services were being slashed as governments at both the federal and provincial levels struggled to service the mountain of debt taken on in the preceding decades.
With that fiscal crisis out of the way (mainly thanks to strong growth and low interest rates in the United States), tax rates have generally fallen in the past decade. Yet evidence of the inability of governments to manage the public's money effectively, or even ethically, continues to abound. Here in Ontario we have seen $1 billion of taxpayers' money frittered away on the cancellation of two power station projects, solely to win political advantage for the ruling party. As much as $3 billion is being spent to host next year's Pan Am Games, a third-rate (I'm being kind) sporting event that is of virtually no interest to the public. A scheme to provide an "incubator" just across the street from the provincial legislative building to foster scientific research has been an abysmal failure and is being bailed out to the tune of hundreds of millions.....the list goes on.
At all levels of government there's venality. Expenses scandals have roiled the federal Senate for years, leading to calls for the chamber's abolition. Municipal politicians across the country have been caught in similar hand-in-the-till scandals, with the recently ousted Mayor of Brampton, Susan Fennell, the highest-profile example. Brampton is a satellite city of about half a million residents just northwest of Toronto, a nondescript place that justifies dusting off Dorothy Parker's old insult about Oakland: "there is no there, there". It's only about the fifth or sixth largest municipality in Ontario, yet Ms Fennell was by a wide margin the best-paid mayor in Canada for many years -- and a serial waster of public funds, particularly on first-class travel for herself and her bloated entourage.
Given this track record -- and this is a very partial list -- it's impossible to feel any sort of surprise that the public has adopted a "won't get fooled again" attitude to taxation. People like the Star's two columnists today may like to think otherwise, but it's hard to see where any kind of consensus will emerge for a higher taxes/better services approach to the economy.
Perhaps in a sign of despair that the message is not getting across, the Himelfarbs try to put a green spin on their case: pay more tax, save the planet. Well, good luck with that. There's rejoicing across the land that the price of gasoline has fallen below a dollar a litre for the first time in years. Woe betide the politician (or columnist) who sees this as a good moment to hike gas taxes.
No comments:
Post a Comment