Tax Credit Thought Experiment

Religious groups currently get support from the government in the form of various tax exemptions. What if a secret committee of the Heritage ministry had to vet religions to make sure that they weren't offensive to people who may have been appointed merely out of patronage. What do you think of that, Chuck McVety?

I want the Mulroney Tax Plan

The Globe & Mail has an article this morning called "Mulroney's six-year tax gap" about how the former PM didn't find it necessary to report his $225 000 in cash from Schreiber for some six years. Mulroney apparently didn't think it necessary to pay taxes on his Schreiber money until the latter was charged. Until then he had considered it as money for covering lobbying expenses, not income. What if Schreiber hadn't been charged? Uhhh:

When asked when he would have paid the tax had Mr. Schreiber not been charged with fraud, tax evasion and bribery in relation to military deals and political contributions in Germany, Mr. Mulroney replied, “I don't know the answer to that.”

So he did it because Schreiber was in trouble? Otherwise it was money for expenses? This strikes me as the action of a guilty conscience. If this was really money designed to cover expenses, there would have been no need to pay tax on it. But once Mulroney saw that Schreiber was in trouble, he got nervous. Or something. It doesn't make sense and all of Mulroney's righteous indignation cannot change that.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats?

That's the line that you hear often enough when dealing with economics, but is it true. In the case of the United States since 1973 Eric Nilsson begs to differ. He isn't done crunching the numbers but from what he has so far it looks like we are just getting back to the early 1970s in terms of real hourly earnings.

For a narrower study here's Eric's take on the 2003 Bush tax cut.

Harper Can't Get an Election

It looks like the Bloc is going to support the budget. This is probably actually a blessing in disguise for the Liberals and the NDP. There are some hard right undercurrents in the budget and they still won't take away their income tax increase on the poor, but I don't think that it's the sort of thing that can get the bulk of Canadians really worked up. There's just as much a risk that the electorate would punish the opposition parties for dragging them to the polls again.

The opposition parties need to make the government fall on a flash of deep blue. I'm convinced that the Stephen Harper who fawns over the GOP and who ran the far-right National Citizens Coalition is still lurking behind Mr. Nice-guy hockey dad. The trick is to get Harper to tip his hand, get him to show how he'd really govern if he got a majority.