Ok, so the Canadian Conservatives are for corporate welfare. Check.
Why is the Green Shift ludicrous? You pay for the labor and capital embedded in a gallon of fuel oil or ton of coal. You don’t pay for the damages caused by the emissions. An emission tax would rectify that. It would also free up revenue to lower taxes that actually do harm or distort the economy.
This is a real question, since I am not familiar with the details of the Liberal or Green plan and details matter.
It could be that most rational people don’t believe for 1 split second that such a tax would be used to do anything about addressing the emissions. Just like taxes on liquor and cigarettes, or current taxes on gasoline supposedly to be used for road improvements, etc that go into general revenues instead.
I spend so much time out of the country that I haven’t kept up on issues and party stances, so pretty much imho.
The point to an emissions tax is to discourage emissions. That’s it. Raise the price of emitting a pollutant and you are going to reduce how much of it is emitted. That’s basic economics. The goal is most definitely not to spend to emissions tax on anti-pollution measures. The tax will go into general revenues, and income taxes will be cut to make the tax revenue-neutral for the government.
So I went to Elections Canada website to see who was running in my riding.
"As of today, there are no candidates who have been officially confirmed in your electoral district. If you wish to vote at the office of the returning officer, or by special ballot, please contact the political party of your choice to find out who will be running. Please note that the nomination process for candidates closes on September 22, 2008, and a complete list of confirmed candidates will be available on September 25, 2008. "
I guess this means that I’m officially undecided until September 25. 63% Liberal last time out and it should be the same this time. Where do I want my $2 to go?
Jesus Christ but am I tired of this ridiculous fucking talking point. Yes, income taxes will be cut. The whole goddamned point of the carbon tax is to increase economic efficiency, and if right-wingers understood a fucking thing the field of Economics that they pretend to venerate so they’d understand that.
When I look at how much of my income is consumed by taxes, the last thing I need to see is yet another tax. OK, so the green shift won’t tax me directly, but the taxation on emitters will most certainly be passed on to me as a consumer. I don’t imagine for one minute that I’ll see any relief on my income tax. And so what if I do? It’s money taken from me and then reimbursed. I’d rather keep the damned money in the first place, thank you very much. It’s a deplorable concept.
Who put a bee up your damn ass?
In any case, when has any tax created efficiencies? How’s it doing cutting back on smoking vs. laws just banning the damn stuff? Liquor consumption? Taxes decreasing liquor consumption are they? You want to stop someone from doing something just make a law that makes it illegal. Sheesh.
Also, from what cave did I just crawl out of that you expect me to believe for one instant that the Liberals would cut taxes when they say they would? Promises to cut or eliminate the GST? Anyone remember that little gem from Jeannie boy a few years ago? Jesus Christ indeed!
BTW, how’s that ‘Green Shift’ lawsuit against the Liberals coming along?
No, it’s sound economic policy. Ask any economist. Pollution is a public bad – in other words, pollution imposes a cost on society as a whole. Now, people tend not to take such social costs into full account when deciding to do anything(now, maybe you do, but many do not take them into account at all – just look at that thread in the Pit). The tax internalizes this social cost – by making it so that you must pay a tax to society to pollute, you will now take into account the tax when deciding whether or not to pollute – and by proxy, you take into account the cost to society.
A pollution tax is a rare case of a tax that actually improves economic activity.
Gasoline has doubled in price in the last, what, 3 or 4 years? Guess how much my driving habits have changed? Zero. I need to drive. I need to eat. I need to heat my home. I need to live. An extra tax will do fuck all to deter me. All it will do is take more money from my pocket. Money that I might spend elsewhere to bolster the economy.
The Constitutional Amendment Formula for changing the role of the General Governor or the Queen does not require Royal Assent if my reading of the Wikipedia page is correct.
But even if it did, what do you think Canadians would do the Queen could veto the amendment? Shrug our shoulders and say, “Damn, we tried.” There are non-official ways of getting rid of a Monarch, as you Americans ought to know.
Further to this, the most economically efficient method of taxing this is right at the source - tax fuel. Ideally, I’d like to see the final cost to the consumer of fuel increase by 50% or more - $2/l gas at the minimum.
Of course, trying to explain this to Fuck-you-got-mine “Conservatives” like Leaffan is like trying to…do something similarly unlikely to succeed.
“But NO! even if it’s revenue neutral, the right to idle my F350 Dually in the drive through cannot be impinged! Well hey, taxes to punish people for making more money? OK, that sounds fair.”
Some people’s habits have changed a lot. For instance, people are making different choices of home and vehicle purchases, so they can commute shorter distances in more efficient cars. They are making their homes more energy-efficient and looking into alternative heat production systems.
If you haven’t done this, it’s either because you have chosen not to, or because you are already at your maximum possible efficiency. If you are already running your life using its most efficient possible use of fossil fuels, I congratulate you. It is exceedingly uncommon for people to go to the trouble to do so with incentives the way they currently are. This is part of the point of a carbon tax.
I don’t own a car.* Yet I continue to pay the (increasing) costs of your driving habits, in the increased pollution of my air, and the maintenance of the highway system, and ensuring a reliable supply of gasoline for you, and paying the health costs of victims of road collisions, and so on.
I have arranged my life so that I do not need a car. For this I pay increased costs (relative to you), such as higher property taxes (so that I can live near my downtown workplace) and more pollution (that I inhale as it comes off of the highway that folks drive to work on every day). I do not get any tax breaks for my transportation, even if it’s required for my work, because it’s not a car (or a Metropass). Why should I continue to subsidize your car use? Why shouldn’t you pay more than I do to reflect the increasing cost of your car use (which benefits you, and not me)?
*I don’t mean to suggest that I don’t benefit from the widespread use of cars that supports my lifestyle, because I do, but not nearly as much as someone who uses a car every day.
What unending string of broken and dysfunctional Parliaments? It sure hasn’t been happening in Canada.
After the PC implosion in 1993 we had three consecutive majority Liberal governments. Then there was a brief Liberal minority, then the current Conservative minority.
You could certainly say the Martin minority was dysfunctional, but the Chretien majorities were perfectly functional governments, and the Conservative minority under Harper has worked just fine and the only reason he’s calling an election is because it’s a good time for his party to do so.
First of all, this isn’t the Pit, so might I humbly suggest you calm down.
Secondly, perhaps people are a little skeptical about government claism of “Revenue neutrality,” which 98% of the time are bullshit. Taxes are sticky; governments are quick to introduce them but curiously slow to get rid of them. You’ll forgive me for being skeptical. I’ve lived in this country for 36 years and been watching politics most of my life, and governments who promise “revenue neutral” tax changes are usually lying, and governments that promise lower spending are usually lying, and governments that promise big returns for no net cost are ALWAYS lying. The “Green Shift” isn’t going to make any measurable difference at all to global climate change, it’s probably not going to end up being revenue neutral, the frictional costs will be hefty, it’ll likely permanently result in more government bureaucracy and expenditure, it may potentially harm low income Canadians harder than others, and with all due respect I understand quite a lot about economics.
So I’m just a little skeptical. That’s how I treat all political promises from all parties. (If my Conservative candidate comes by my house and saying they’re going to hold the line on spending, I’m going to laugh in his face.) Not everyone who doubts the Liberal Party is a “fuck you I’ve got mine conservative,” as you so politely phrase it. Similarly, not everyone who doiubts the Conservative Party is a tree-hugging communist.
The Governor General is a hired position with a fixed term - hired by Parliament, e.g. the Prime Minister. If the GG refused to cooperate with Parliament they’d get a new one. It’s like asking “What would happen if George Bush refused to hold a PResidential election this year?” He has no choice; the system’s bigger than he is, and chugs along into an election whether he likes it or not.
Many people are driving less, or arranging trips to do multiple tasks. I have done some better insulating and weatherproofing in my house in the past 3 years, and have seen my oil use go down 20%. I have put in compact Fluourscent lights, and have made an effort to turn electric appliances off when not in use, and have seen a 30% decrease in my electricity use. It was the increase in cost of energy that encouraged me to do this.
A tax, together with a good education program, could reduce Canada’s energy use significantly.
It’s been said that if a British monach is presented with her own death warrant, duly passed by Parliament, she must sign it. If the Queen stood in the way of something her government wanted, she would soon find herself out of a job. Parliament did it to Charles I and James II, after all, and it could do it again. But this Queen, and indeed I think her entire family, would never let it come to that.
I’m not Canadian but have been very interested to read this thread and learn more about Canadian politics. Why no love for Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader, among our Canadopers?
Leaffan: And also, your taxes fund the social services we all enjoy. I don’t want to have to pay for every service I get from the government, and I certainly don’t want to pay a private company looking for profit. Everyone bitches about the tax burden without looking at the savings.
Talk to someone who got stung for health care in the US, as but one example. You can’t get social services without taxes, and those social services make our society better, whether we are direct beneficiaries or only secondary beneficiaries.
And the private sector would be only too happy to provide those benefits, provided they could make a profit on it. All the hoopla about business creating jobs - they’re not doing it for the betterment of our country, they’re doing it to make more money!
For curiosity, what will it take to deter you from using the car? Our society is hooked on gas like an addict is to crack. We just have to stop!
I could go on, and probably will later, but I’ve got work to get done.