Tuesday, September 30, 2008

In which Erin Weir calls Harper and Dion's biz tax bluff

If one entertains the view of the Conservative Party / Bay Street establishment and their acolytes in the Fraser and CD Howe Institutes - as well as their new branch plant in the Dion Liberals - the knock against the New Democrats' platform is that Layton's proposal to return corporate rates of tax to where they were only last year is tantamount to shutting down the economy (proving there is sometimes more overacting among the economic right than in a grade 7 production of "Our Town").

So it's a good thing that Erin Weir over at Progressive Economics Forum has written this. In a phrase: "corporate taxes are but one of many factors that influence competitiveness."

Weir is absolutely right of course. Massive corporate giveaways since 2000 have given us the economy we have now: losing jobs, and delivering virtually zero wage growth. It hasn't worked in the US either. So Jack Layton is right -- if participating in a rush to the bottom on corporate taxes hasn't gotten us what we want yet, why keep doing it?

2 comments:

Phillip Huggan said...

(oh so close to 2nd)
I've accounted the societally high ROI 3 year expenditures of all 5 parties; positive externalities like environmental capital costing, R+D, daycare, foreign aid, and mental health + affordable housing programmes to fight homelessness. Rankings are: 1st Greens $172B, 2nd Libs $45B, 3rd NDP $45B, 4th Bloc $15B, 5th Cons $8B.
Ignoring off-the-chart Greens, Liberals have highest environment and R+D totals, NDP best childcare and highest sindustry penalty, and Bloc the best anti-homelessness strategies: http://externalityaccounting.blogspot.com/

Malcolm+ said...

Of course, given the consistent Liberal record over the past 141 years or so, there is effectively no chance that the Liberals would ever do a single bloody thing they've promised. So, a more accurate accounting would be:

- Greens $172B
- New Dems $45B
- Bloc $15B
- Cons 2/3 of 4/5 of nothing
- Libs 1/3 of 1/5 of less than nothing.