THE CONSERVATIVE HIPSTERS
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Don't just cut...simplify
This past weekend I attended the Annual General Meeting of a local PC Party of Ontario riding association.
The guest speaker was not your normal AGM or fundraiser speaker. It was Dr. Henry Jacek, who is a political science professor at McMaster University and current head of the Internship program at the Ontario Legislature.
Dr. Jacek offered a variety of opinions and comments which resonated with the local crowd, but one thing he said which caught my attention was something along the lines that "the public is not interested in tax cuts anymore.".
Now while this would be easily dismissed coming from the typical left-wing, "we need your money more than you do" crowd, from Dr. Jacek it had some authority.
He went on to say that successive tax cuts and reductions at both the provincial and federal levels made people generally feel that they weren't to bad off anymore.
He also said that while people accepted the tax cuts, they didn't give the party too much credit for them.
He didn't say, but I feel it is valid, that the left has succeeded in convincing everyone that tax cuts equals service cuts and closed hospitals, closed schools and poor roads and poisoned water.
While I am a big tax cut guy (I am selfish that way) and strongly support the family income idea that B-Double mentioned earlier, I think tax cuts need to be rethought by our party.
I think a solution might lie in "simplification" rather than cutting of taxes.
Rather than change all the tax brackets and index this or deduct that, we should move to the elimination of the system of deductions and credits that requires hours upon hours of work to complete.
Q
PS I hope everyone had a very, happy father's day.
The guest speaker was not your normal AGM or fundraiser speaker. It was Dr. Henry Jacek, who is a political science professor at McMaster University and current head of the Internship program at the Ontario Legislature.
Dr. Jacek offered a variety of opinions and comments which resonated with the local crowd, but one thing he said which caught my attention was something along the lines that "the public is not interested in tax cuts anymore.".
Now while this would be easily dismissed coming from the typical left-wing, "we need your money more than you do" crowd, from Dr. Jacek it had some authority.
He went on to say that successive tax cuts and reductions at both the provincial and federal levels made people generally feel that they weren't to bad off anymore.
He also said that while people accepted the tax cuts, they didn't give the party too much credit for them.
He didn't say, but I feel it is valid, that the left has succeeded in convincing everyone that tax cuts equals service cuts and closed hospitals, closed schools and poor roads and poisoned water.
While I am a big tax cut guy (I am selfish that way) and strongly support the family income idea that B-Double mentioned earlier, I think tax cuts need to be rethought by our party.
I think a solution might lie in "simplification" rather than cutting of taxes.
Rather than change all the tax brackets and index this or deduct that, we should move to the elimination of the system of deductions and credits that requires hours upon hours of work to complete.
Q
PS I hope everyone had a very, happy father's day.
# posted by Q : 8:51 p.m.
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