Tories should maintain Liberal Income Tax Cuts

[August1991]

Both the Liberals and NDP are strongly opposed to rescinding the personal tax cuts, a problem for the government to negotiate in the minority Parliament that meets in early April.

And the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is ready to pounce on anything seen as a tax increase. "If they do raise income taxes, Harper will be labelled a tax hiker," warns the federation's Adam Taylor.

The Conservative government might decide to let the income tax cuts, introduced by the Liberals, stand as a way to bolster its popularity.

Toronto Star

I think the Tories should follow this advice. It will be politically popular, and it makes sense. The government is capable of cutting income taxes (as the Liberals intended and as has been the case since 1 January 2006) and cutting the GST.

With an intelligent and realistic budget, the government would stay in surplus - although a budget surplus is a needless, even foolish, Canadian political fetish.

This would also be a smart political solution to the so-called fiscal imbalance. By cutting taxes, the federal government would leave it up to the provincial governments to raise their taxes and claw back the federal tax cut - taking the political heat in the process.

[geoffrey]

Both the Liberals and NDP are strongly opposed to rescinding the personal tax cuts, a problem for the government to negotiate in the minority Parliament that meets in early April.

And the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is ready to pounce on anything seen as a tax increase. "If they do raise income taxes, Harper will be labelled a tax hiker," warns the federation's Adam Taylor.

The Conservative government might decide to let the income tax cuts, introduced by the Liberals, stand as a way to bolster its popularity.

Toronto Star

I think the Tories should follow this advice. It will be politically popular, and it makes sense. The government is capable of cutting income taxes (as the Liberals intended and as has been the case since 1 January 2006) and cutting the GST.

With an intelligent and realistic budget, the government would stay in surplus - although a budget surplus is a needless, even foolish, Canadian political fetish.

This would also be a smart political solution to the so-called fiscal imbalance. By cutting taxes, the federal government would leave it up to the provincial governments to raise their taxes and claw back the federal tax cut - taking the political heat in the process.

Your right, a surplus is a bad thing. Why people are so hellbent on having this surplus beats me...

I hope that they maintain the tax cuts and do the GST cut. Though if we can only have one, the GST will mean more money in our pockets (do the math on this one, the 1% tax cut for the lowest bracket is only a few hundred for those at the top of the bracket, it does nothing for real poor people).

I really hate the idea of this massive surpluses that the government just then blows on wasteful spending. A surplus doesn't serve any purpose besides political points with many voters.

Balanced budgets are nice, surpluses are just as bad as deficits!

[tml12]

Both the Liberals and NDP are strongly opposed to rescinding the personal tax cuts, a problem for the government to negotiate in the minority Parliament that meets in early April.

And the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is ready to pounce on anything seen as a tax increase. "If they do raise income taxes, Harper will be labelled a tax hiker," warns the federation's Adam Taylor.

The Conservative government might decide to let the income tax cuts, introduced by the Liberals, stand as a way to bolster its popularity.

Toronto Star

I think the Tories should follow this advice. It will be politically popular, and it makes sense. The government is capable of cutting income taxes (as the Liberals intended and as has been the case since 1 January 2006) and cutting the GST.

With an intelligent and realistic budget, the government would stay in surplus - although a budget surplus is a needless, even foolish, Canadian political fetish.

This would also be a smart political solution to the so-called fiscal imbalance. By cutting taxes, the federal government would leave it up to the provincial governments to raise their taxes and claw back the federal tax cut - taking the political heat in the process.

Your right, a surplus is a bad thing. Why people are so hellbent on having this surplus beats me...

I hope that they maintain the tax cuts and do the GST cut. Though if we can only have one, the GST will mean more money in our pockets (do the math on this one, the 1% tax cut for the lowest bracket is only a few hundred for those at the top of the bracket, it does nothing for real poor people).

I really hate the idea of this massive surpluses that the government just then blows on wasteful spending. A surplus doesn't serve any purpose besides political points with many voters.

Balanced budgets are nice, surpluses are just as bad as deficits!

Surplus=cut my taxes!!! That's what I told the Quebec government...

BTW: Geoffrey, do you sleep? It's 6:30AM here, it's like 4:30AM there?

[Argus]

Both the Liberals and NDP are strongly opposed to rescinding the personal tax cuts, a problem for the government to negotiate in the minority Parliament that meets in early April.

And the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is ready to pounce on anything seen as a tax increase. "If they do raise income taxes, Harper will be labelled a tax hiker," warns the federation's Adam Taylor.

The Conservative government might decide to let the income tax cuts, introduced by the Liberals, stand as a way to bolster its popularity.

Toronto Star

I think the Tories should follow this advice. It will be politically popular, and it makes sense. The government is capable of cutting income taxes (as the Liberals intended and as has been the case since 1 January 2006) and cutting the GST.

With an intelligent and realistic budget, the government would stay in surplus - although a budget surplus is a needless, even foolish, Canadian political fetish.

This would also be a smart political solution to the so-called fiscal imbalance. By cutting taxes, the federal government would leave it up to the provincial governments to raise their taxes and claw back the federal tax cut - taking the political heat in the process.

The Tories have all sorts of things they want to spend a lot more money on, starting with increasing the size of the military and buying it all sorts of expensive new toys, and then going on to increased policing and health care. I don't think it's the time to splurge on tax cuts until we find out what all that is going to cost. The Liberals lost, and with that their policies disappear. The Tories are under no obligation to continue what was never a serious tax cut anyway, but merely a political ploy. The defence the Libs and NDP are putting up for tax cuts is amusing, but purely political.

[Spike22]

Anything that reduces my taxes and puts more money in my pocket is OK by me. However I don't think we need to spend even more on other fed programs - how about more breaks for the majority of us Canadians by returning some of this surplus back to us.

[geoffrey]

Surplus=cut my taxes!!! That's what I told the Quebec government...

BTW: Geoffrey, do you sleep? It's 6:30AM here, it's like 4:30AM there?

Exactly, a surplus is saying there is money sitting in government accounts that should be in the economy.

I don't sleep nope. I'll have plenty of time for sleep when I'm dead. I've been up late with a major project the last few days (work, not school, I wouldn't stay up this late for school). It's 'reading week' (ie: Spring Break) here next week though so it's going to be nice to sleep again for a week at least.