Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Dion's "Tax Shift" - A hole big enough...

...to drive a Prius through.

Garth shared some thoughts this morning on Dion's soon to be announced "Tax Trick"... but if you stop and think about it for even a second, it contains a fatal flaw.
"But as the Lib leader will confirm soon, the Green Shift is exactly as we suggested. A total of $15.5 billion in personal, family and business taxation will be wiped out, replaced with an equal amount of tax on the emitters of pollution. The new price on carbon will make fossil fuels (but not gasoline) more expensive, and raise other consumer prices a modest amount over four years. This is for the goal of cleaning up our environment and finally addressing climate change."
Here's the question... [drumroll please...]

What happens when emitters start reducing their emissions? Amm, the amount of taxation that Ottawa takes in will begin to drop. Of course, then the carbon taxes will go up, which will make things more expensive for businesses, which will drive further reductions, which will further decrease revenues.

Eventually, they're going to reach a critical mass, where they can't increase the carbon tax any further, but will be faced with dropping revenues. So the question is, what do they do then? Well, the only means they'll have will be to re-increase personal income taxes.

Now that will be an interesting little tax trick...

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8 Comments:

  • At Thu Jun 19, 11:25:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger David Graham - cdlu.net said…

    CC,

    It is great to see that you agree that the Greenshift will indeed help to reduce Canada's emissions.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 11:51:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The Nutty Professor summed up the Liberal philosophy behind this scam in the first minute of his speech today. While comparing the merits of the various parties approach to the non-existant AGW, he stated that the Conservatives plan was based on the premise of "leaving Canadians to their own devices." Kinda reminds me of the Liberal idiot who, during the last campaign, said that Harper's plan to reduce personal taxes would only result in the savings being spent on beer and pizza. This sums up the Liberal philosophy in a nutshell. We, the public, are too stupid to know what's good for us.
    As an aside to the above: since you mention Garth Turner's blog, and since my URL has been blocked from his site for the last couple of months (it's the only site of the dozens I visit that has shut me out. The NDP sites simply don't print any of my comments, but they don't block them from being submitted.)I will take issue with one of his statements using your site in the hope it may get passed on.
    When Mr. Turner was guesting on the Dave Rutherford program he came away with the impression that Albertans are still upset over the NEP. In his blog, Mr. Turner states that Pierre Trudeau instituted this rape "...so Canadians could benefit from the resources located within our country's own borders." Not surprisingly, he ignores the fact that nickle, iron, copper, zinc, etc. Which are not found in Alberta were never subjected to the same type of program. The west paid the full world value for these commodities. It is just another example of the Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal elitist clique that so deeply believes that the country is only here to serve their needs. This notion is so deeply ingrained that they don't even recognize the inconsistencies in their statements.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 11:55:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Bert said…

    Tax on the emitters of pollution.

    Once again, the burden falls on the middle class. We're the ones who drive to work & emit more C02 than people making less than $20,000 a year, or who are on welfare. From the sounds of it, THEY will be getting most of the break's, if I'm not mistaken.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 12:48:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger cowtown.legal said…

    So in your nightmare scenario, the Green Shift motivates emitters to reduce their emissions, and the government is then eventually forced to become more efficient or play around with the tax code again.

    That sounds like a reason to support the program, not oppose it.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 01:19:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Oxford County Liberals said…

    And the best Harper can deliver is more or less saying in response that Dion is lying.

    Whatever else can be said about Dion, no one questioned his integrity. Harper and the Cons will deeply regret trying to push that as an attack line.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 02:16:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yup, those are the talking points alright. Do you have any original thoughts at all, or do you just sit back and wait for the CPC press release to hit the hot wire before you paste and copy?

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 02:40:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Actually, I haven't gotten a single talking point, it's all off the top of my head... but thanks for the compliment.

     
  • At Thu Jun 19, 03:47:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Decreased Revenues?

    How about decreased spending?

    Decreased spending = smaller government

    HOORAY!!!!!!

    Mike Wisniewski

     

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