The government of Ontario has claimed a 20 billion dollar tax cut over
the next five years.
According to the Globe and Mail, this is the same amount as the expected increase
in the national debt in the same period.
Thus, one way of looking at things is that Harris is borrowing all the
money for the tax cut.
Further, 66% of these tax cuts benefit people in the top 10% of income
brackets.
Households earning $90,000 or more account for 50% of that sum -- approximately
10 billion dollars.
Shouldn't the tax cuts be helping out the poor?
According to a recent CAA flyer, Ontario residents pay $4.26 billion in the form of gas tax, licences, and permits to the federal and provincial governments, ostensibly to pay for road construction and repair. Except that actual road expenditures are only $1.49 billion dollars. Now, with the opening of the 407 highway, and the new Omnibus bill, new forms of road tolls will be implemented.
Recently reported in Xtra (Jan 30th, 1997):
Apparently Premier Mike "Supercuts" Harris hasn't always been so concerned about education spending.
Earlier this month his government announced plans to slash Ontario's school board trustees from 1,900 to about 700, make the job part-time and cut the annual pay to $5,000.
But according to a report in the Jan 14 Toronto Sun, when Harris himself was a trustee on the Nipissing board of Education he voted to hike his own monthly salary to $400 from $150 -- a 166 percent increase.
I can't recommend this book strongly enough. Although it deals more with federal-level politics and policies, it is an essential tool for exposing the deficit myths that the press keep reporting. Mike Harris uses these myths to justify the gutting of Ontario.
Canadian governments have not "overspent" on programs and services, either in actual terms or in comparison with other countries.
In 1994-95, for example, the federal government collected $123.9 billion in revenue, while spending $119.1 billion on services and programs, leaving an operating surplus of $4.6 billion.
An even larger operating surplus was projected for 1995-96, this time $11.5 billion.
This is not unusual. Spending on programs in Canada has rarely exceeded government revenue since World War II. In fact, the deficits incurred on program spending since 1975 total just $67 billion--a relatively small percentage of the total accumulated debt.
Back to my bio.