Another Goodale Weekly Update:
THE TRUTH ABOUT MR. HARPER AND TAXES
Stephen Harper wants you to believe he’s a tax cutter. He also wants you to believe he tells the truth. But on both counts, hard facts keep getting in his way.
On the issue of truthfulness, remember the $800-million he promised to send Saskatchewan every year in extra equalization payments. Remember his promise never to tax income trusts.
Remember his promise not to appoint Senators. Remember his promise about fixed election dates. Remember his promise never to run a deficit.
In Conservative Party pamphlets, Mr. Harper once proclaimed: “There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept!”
Given his already long record of “promises not kept”, you would think Mr. Harper might be reluctant to be involved in any more such “frauds” – to use his own words!
But another one emerged last week.
The issue was “payroll taxes” – i.e., higher Employment Insurance premiums.
Buried in the fine print of Mr. Harper’s most recent financial statements, forensic experts uncovered $13 billion in Conservative payroll tax increases, scheduled to come into effect just over a year from now.
This is dishonest politically and stupid economically.
It’s dishonest, because it flies in the face of the Harper government’s promise NOT to raise ANY taxes. But just as they increased personal income tax rates and slapped a brutal new tax on income trusts, they’ve broken their word on taxes time and again.
It’s stupid, because the last thing our struggling economy needs is a new Conservative tax on jobs. It’s simply wrong to propose higher, job-killing payroll taxes – to hit every employer and employee in this country – just when they will be struggling to create new jobs in the fight to recover from the recession?
Are these the first fruits of that new conservative-socialist-separatist coalition that’s now propping-up Stephen Harper’s minority government?
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