Sunday morning, on Public Eye Radio, former premier Bill Vander Zalm joins us for a postmortem on today's anti-harmonized sales tax rallies. Saanich-Gulf Islands federal Liberal candidate Renee Heatherington discusses her bid to unseat incumbent Conservative Gary Lunn And our rabble-rousing panel - Don Anderson, Bob Russell, The Times Colonist's Rob Shaw, Allan Warnke - debate the week that was in provincial and federal politics. You can listen to Public Eye Radio outside of Victoria by logging into CFAX 1070 between 8:00 and 10:00. If you have a question for one of our guests, you can email us or leave a comment below.
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Anti-taxation representation
September 19, 2009
In 2 minutes, 12 seconds on YouTube is the defense of the HST as anti-poverty. Why the HST is good for the poor?
Try, "It certainly is far better than back in the day when people on low and moderate incomes actually still had to take more money out of their pocket to give to government. Imagine that there was a time when those who had the lowest income in our province were still having to pay income tax. It was a shame, but that's what happened. Now we've recognized, thankfully, with our government, that the important thing to do is to leave that money in people's pockets and to let them have the choices to make."
Finally, I hope this time we can have an intellectual, give-and-take debate like PublicEyeOnline Radio instead of smears please.
You must be kidding me. In that youtube video you hero is trying to argue that a consumption tax is progressive because rich people who spend more will pay more? Why don't we go a flat income tax then too, the rich still pay more right? I am not even sure where to begin with this one. Leave money in peoples pockets by making everything they have to buy more expensive? The poor that MP claims are somehow being helped by the HST still have to buy what they need to make do. Many of those basic items will now cost more, making it even tougher to make ends meet. Consumption taxes have their place, but they are not progressive.
Joesph, I agree that debate over autism funding got a bit heated, but your admiration for anything and everything MP does leaves you open for abuse. Just like linking to you tube videos that put scenes of fighter jets blowing things up in between partisan statements does not help either. And by the way, the Minister of health was forced to admit just before the election that they missed the five thousand bed target by quite a large margin, so Mary should maybe check her facts on those 12,000 beds she claimed the liberals had made (they changed the definition of bed when it became clear they were not going to bet even close). They may have a housing plan. but just like the green plan, having a plan is one thing, actually making a difference is another and if we have learned anything about this government is that they do not have the attention span to make a difference.
Andy;
Thanks for coming on down :-). With the HST:
1) The embedded taxes to government disappear but are upfront.
2) A flat income tax sure sounds like a good idea. Except...
3) Low-income BCers get up to $340 in rebates for the carbon tax shift & HST. Now, I don't know about you, but that's progressive. You may also want to read this PDF from the BC gov't about proposed exemptions. Quote, "the HST will not apply to basic groceries and residential rent, two items which account for a large proportion of total expenditures by those with lower incomes. All other items that are currently zero-rated or exempt from the GST will also be zero-rated or exempt from the HST."
Also thanks for the kind words and counsel.