[Newsbot]

Title: Liberals seek to explain stance on whether to hike GST as revenue booster
Category: Political
Posted By: N_Fiddledog
Date: 2015-12-16 00:31:55
Canadian

[Canadian_Mind]

I'm cool with going back to 7% GST. We need to pay down our debt and we could have been paying it down sooner had it not been reduced originally.

[OnTheIce]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I'm cool with going back to 7% GST. We need to pay down our debt and we could have been paying it down sooner had it not been reduced originally.

No sense raising the GST with the intention to raise the debt at the same time.

[Lemmy]

Seems a curious time to be thinking about a GST increase. The old fiscal trap conundrum: government coffers dry up when the economy runs slow, so the gov't needs extra cash, yet collecting it slows the economy more.

So, no, now is not the time to consider a GST hike. A GST cut would do more to help spur the sputtering economy along right now, especially since there's no where to go, monetary policy-wise, to encourage spending.

[BartSimpson]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Seems a curious time to be thinking about a GST increase. The old fiscal trap conundrum: government coffers dry up when the economy runs slow, so the gov't needs extra cash, yet collecting it slows the economy more.

So, no, now is not the time to consider a GST hike. A GST cut would do more to help spur the sputtering economy along right now, especially since there's no where to go, monetary policy-wise, to encourage spending.

You're going to upset the people on CKA who think it's possible for Canada to tax itself into prosperity.

Because liberal math: If I take a dollar from your pocket and put it in my pocket then now we have TWO DOLLARS! See how that works? Oh, you can't? Then you're a racist.

[Lemmy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

You're going to upset the people on CKA who think it's possible for Canada to tax itself into prosperity.

Because liberal math: If I take a dollar from your pocket and put it in my pocket then now we have TWO DOLLARS! See how that works? Oh, you can't? Then you're a racist.

Well we're already prosperous so there's no need to seek to create prosperity. It's more a case of keeping the ship afloat, to steal Michael Bliss' analogy: the Canadian economy is like a ship on the sea of the world economy. When seas are rough, it's okay to run deficits to spur the economy on, but when seas are calm, those debts must be repaid, like emptying ballast. If you don't empty your bilge and the seas turn for-shit again, you start taking on water and pretty soon you're sunk.