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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:24 pm
 


jj2424 jj2424:
Chretien thought it was a good idea to get rid of the whole thing.

"I'll kill da GST"!


0:
proof.jpg
proof.jpg [ 51.79 KiB | Viewed 58 times ]


:mrgreen:

-J.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:30 pm
 


Chrétien was doing "Bush'isms" before Bush. :lol:





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:30 pm
 


Lemmy Lemmy:
They may not have had any clue about the Laffer curve (I suspect they did), but it turned out not to matter after the economy tanked in the wake of the US financial crisis. The tax relief that many (especially unemployed) Canadians received as a result of the GST cut more than justified the cost of a little deficit. That's what governments are supposed to do: run deficits in hard times to help out hard-hit citizens. You're starting to sound like a heartless conservative when you criticize the government for the GST cut.


No a heartless Conservative would give tax cuts and create a deficit so that it could later justify gutting social services.

Ian Brodie offers a candid case study in politics and policy (2009)
$1:
Ian Brodie, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, delivered an astonishingly frank explanation today for why the Conservative government cut the Goods and Services Tax, and why he’s glad they did, even though just about every economist and tax expert said it was a terrible bit of public policy.

“Despite economic evidence to the contrary, in my view the GST cut worked,” Brodie said in Montreal at the annual conference of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “It worked in the sense that by the end of the ’05-’06 campaign, voters identified the Conservative party as the party of lower taxes. It worked in the sense that it helped us to win.”

It’s not really surprising, of course, that campaign calculations lay behind the GST cuts, which have cost the federal government about $12 billion a year at the worst possible time. That’s been obvious all along.

What’s noteworthy is that Brodie, who is now a visiting fellow at the McGill institute, doesn’t shrink from publicly asserting that such a major public policy decision can still be deemed a success—even in the face of “evidence to the contrary”—if that move paid the desired political dividends.

It’s important to note that Brodie expanded his justification beyond simply saying that the policy was a success because it helped get Tories elected. He went on to argue that making good on their promise to cut the GST was, somehow, the move that allowed the Harper government to proceed later with the sorts of corporate and personal income tax cuts that most economists and tax-policy specialists believe make much more sense.
...
He made it in a panel discussion meant to try to address the question “Does Evidence Matter in Policy-Making?” To some of the other panelists, and I would guess to most of those in the roomful of academics and bureaucrats listening, the assumed premise was that evidence—facts, objective analysis, expertise—should matter a great deal more in policy than it does now.

But Brodie painted a picture of politics where that would appear to be a hopeless aspiration.

He ruefully recounted how the Conservatives tried to run in the 2004 election on a comprehensive tax-reduction platform based on solid policy thinking. But that meant they had to explain, he joked, “multi-year this, multi-year that.” Canadian voters tuned out the details and defeated Harper’s Tories.

Brodie said the party’s campaign researchers then explored public opinion. They discovered that Canadians tend to forget or discount past income tax cuts. Ontario voters don’t remember that Mike Harris reduced them, Alberta voters don’t think Ralph Klein cut theirs. “We found no one,” he said, “who believed they had ever had a tax cut from Jean Chretien or Paul Martin.”





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:35 pm
 


Hawkes Hawkes:
And just like that we're talking about something else.

What happened to the topic at hand? What does Chretian have to do with Harper cutting the GST?



It's under GST in the smoke and mirrors cookbook to cooking elections. The sheep can't think, they just hear GST and immediately this happens to every topic.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:50 pm
 


Oooooh, a conspiracy theory. Hold on, let me raid the roll of aluminium foil from Mrs. Lemmy's kitchen cart.





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:57 pm
 


Lemmy Lemmy:
Oooooh, a conspiracy theory. Hold on, let me raid the roll of aluminium foil from Mrs. Lemmy's kitchen cart.


It's hardly a conspiracy "theory" when Harper's chief of staff during the campaign explains what their reasons were.

Whos theory would it be, his?


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:01 pm
 


Curtman Curtman:
Lemmy Lemmy:
Oooooh, a conspiracy theory. Hold on, let me raid the roll of aluminium foil from Mrs. Lemmy's kitchen cart.


It's hardly a conspiracy "theory" when Harper's chief of staff during the campaign explains what their reasons were.

Whos theory would it be, his?


Don't matter which cooks made the dough, Lemmy's post above sums it up correctly.





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:31 pm
 


... Also this.

Harper vows to reduce GST (2005)
$1:
Liberal promises already include billions of dollars in income and corporate tax cuts, but the party went into the campaign rejecting the idea of lowering the GST.
"I believe we should cut personal income taxes," Liberal Leader Paul Martin said on Thursday after Harper's announcement. "Canadians should keep more of their paycheque."

Martin said voters will be able to compare the parties' two plans for cutting taxes.

"I believe mine is more fair, especially for the Canadian middle class," he said
...
Finance Minister Ralph Goodale said reducing the GST favours the rich on Thursday.

In an interview with CBC Newsworld, Goodale said lowering consumption taxes such as the GST is good for people who spend a lot of money. "The biggest savings will go to the biggest spenders," he said.

"Everybody that looks at this... says that this approach to the GST may be good politics, but it's stupid economics."

Trimming personal income taxes is the way to help people in the lower- and middle-income brackets, said Goodale.


It cost us a lot, but did very little for the unemployed.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:56 pm
 


Okay, so you disagree with the GST cut. I get that. I understand the argument against it. It has merit. Where you're talking out you ass is when you characterize your position as unanimous among economists. -5 This ain't global warming, where every credible expert is on one side of the "debate". My suspicion is that more economists would side with my interpretation. I don't know, I'm sure there's never been a poll conducted. And why are we debating this again anyway? It's not like it matters anymore and even if it was the wrong decision, it certainly wasn't "the crime of the century" of economic/political blunders. More like chewing gum in class than an epic governmental fuck-up...IF it was a mistake.

$1:
"The biggest savings will go to the biggest spenders"

Of course the biggest savings go to the biggest spenders. Rich people spend more dollars, so obviously they'll save more dollars when sales tax rates fall. That doesn't mean it isn't also a benefit to the smallest spenders. If I have a prospect that benefits you by $100 and benefits me by $200, isn't it still good for you?

And how do we measure "biggest savings"? Are we talking about gross dollars? Or are we talking percentage of spending. Because the Marginal Propensity to Consume falls as income rises. Rich people save some of their money, poor people spend it all. So that quoted statement above is correct only if we're talking about total dollars. It's wrong if we're talking about percentage of income that is taxed by sales tax.

curtman curtman:
It cost us a lot, but did very little for the unemployed.

That's an empirical conclusion. Do you beat off a lot or very little?





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:11 pm
 


Lemmy Lemmy:
Okay, so you disagree with the GST cut. I get that. I understand the argument against it. It has merit. Where you're talking out you ass is when you characterize your position as unanimous among economists. -5 This ain't global warming, where every credible expert is on one side of the "debate". My suspicion is that more economists would side with my interpretation. I don't know, I'm sure there's never been a poll conducted.

$1:
"The biggest savings will go to the biggest spenders

Of course the biggest savings go to the biggest spenders. Rich people spend more dollars, so obviously they'll save more dollars when sales tax rates fall. That doesn't mean it isn't also a benefit to the smallest spenders. If I have a prospect that benefits you by $100 and benefits me by $200, isn't it still good for you?

And how do we measure "biggest savings"? Are we talking about gross dollars? Or are we talking percentage of spending. Because the Marginal Propensity to Consume falls as income rises. Rich people save some of their money, poor people spend it all. So that quoted statement above is correct only if we're talking about total dollars. It's wrong if we're talking about percentage of income that is taxed by sales tax.

curtman curtman:
It cost us a lot, but did very little for the unemployed.

That's an empirical conclusion. Do you beat off a lot or very little?


One approach recognizes wealth disparity and targets tax cuts at people who need it.. The other rewards the largest consumer. The former costs less and achieves more, the latter costs more to achieve less.

Again, I'm just a layperson here. My economic training is non-existent other than a course in University One. But there were very few people saying this cut would help Canadians in any substantial way.

GST cut taking bite out of government bottom line
$1:
NOVEMBER 16, 2006 [before there was a recession]
However, the budget surplus for the first six months of the current fiscal year was still more than $5 billion more than during the first half of last year, a year when the government eventually chalked up a hefty, and politically embarrassing, $13.2-billion surplus.

The surplus for the first six months of the 2006-2007 fiscal year was an estimated $5.3 billion, $400 million more than in the same period of 2005-2006, the department said.

The report comes in advance of next Thursday's budget update, which Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has said will contain a somewhat higher forecast for the surplus for this year than the $3.5 billion projected in last May's budget.

The relatively large surplus so far this year doesn't yet fully take into account the impact of the one percentage point cut in the GST, plus other tax reductions and some spending increases announced in the budget, he has noted.

The government estimates the cut in the GST alone will reduce its take from that tax by $3.5 billion this year, and by $5.2 billion next fiscal year when the reduction will be in place for the full year.

Flaherty has promised that, unlike the former Liberal governments, the Conservatives will not run fat, or fatter than forecast annual budget surpluses.


But I specifically remember not running into anyone who said revenue would go up other than you. It was a theory, maybe not a conspiracy, but a theory none-the-less.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:28 pm
 


Curtman Curtman:
But I specifically remember not running into anyone who said revenue would go up other than you. It was a theory, maybe not a conspiracy, but a theory none-the-less.

It depends what you mean by "revenues". I said revenues from sales tax would go up as a result of the cut. Other things happened that overwhelmed that effect. Of course, we can't test that because the economy collapsed and tax revenues from all sources plummeted. But regardless the GST cut's effect on tax revenues, I maintain that cutting the GST had a stimulating effect on the economy, just when it was needed, as well as provided relief for poor people who spend every cent they have.





PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:35 pm
 


Lemmy Lemmy:
Curtman Curtman:
But I specifically remember not running into anyone who said revenue would go up other than you. It was a theory, maybe not a conspiracy, but a theory none-the-less.

It depends what you mean by "revenues". I said revenues from sales tax would go up as a result of the cut. Other things happened that overwhelmed that effect. Of course, we can't test that because the economy collapsed and tax revenues from all sources plummeted. But regardless the GST cut's effect on tax revenues, I maintain that cutting the GST had a stimulating effect on the economy, just when it was needed, as well as provided relief for poor people who spend every cent they have.


That's fine. I'm glad there's someone like yourself to discuss this with here. I agree with what the article says:

$1:
Needless to say, not having $14-billion also delays what the Conservatives now insist is job No. 1 – erasing the deficit by 2015.


I'd rather that 14 billion dollar shortfall went to people who weren't hoarding it.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:59 am
 


Lemmy Lemmy:
That's what governments are supposed to do: run deficits in hard times to help out hard-hit citizens. You're starting to sound like a heartless conservative when you criticize the government for the GST cut.


I agree with Keynesian economics, and don't have many problems with having a deficit in bad economic times, but I've always felt that cutting income taxes would have been better for the country, both in terms of keeping revenues neutral and reducing the tax burden on citizens.

Slashing the GST was a tool to get elected and it worked wonders for the Conservatives, but they are in real danger of getting turfed in 2016 if they can't balance the budget because of it.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:09 am
 


bootlegga bootlegga:
I've always felt that cutting income taxes would have been better for the country, both in terms of keeping revenues neutral and reducing the tax burden on citizens.

That's another kettle of fish. I agree, in general, but income tax reform, to be beneficial, requires a lot more thought and effort, such as redefining the progressive brackets, closing exemptions/loopholes that allow too many people to avoid their fair share, corporate vs. personal income tax considerations, etc, etc.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:38 am
 


Curtman Curtman:
I'd rather that 14 billion dollar shortfall went to people who weren't hoarding it.


Because money is better in the hands of the Government and not in the pockets of Canadians?


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