Monday, June 23, 2008

Dion's Carbon Tax Revenue Neutral? Impossible!

As per usual the Liberals are playing fast and loose with the facts in trying to sell yet another of their big ideas to the Canadian electorate in order to get themselves elected and back into power.

Heard this one before? The Green Shift will be revenue neutral and ALL of the money collected will go back to the taxpayer. It will not make money for the government, and it will NOT cost the government any other money to run. FYI directly from the green plan: "This shift will be done in a revenue neutral way –putting it in law that every dollar that is raised from carbon pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax" cuts."

Well I am calling BS to that and to all of the great minds in the Liberal Party of Canada who are, with a straight face, claiming this to be true.

Aside from the fact that no one believes this claim to be true, as governments have never been able to pull it off before in spite of their promises, and forgetting totally the truly ridiculous notion that that NO extra people or new bureaucracy will be needed to run such massive taxation scheme, there are a couple of other reasons why the carbon tax cannot possibly be revenue neutral as claimed by the Liberals.

The first reason I dealt with in an earlier post and as of yet it really has not been refuted by Garth or the rest of the LPC spin machine which is currently in overdrive selling Dion's plan.
If this plan is a success and our CO2 emissions do manage to go down, where will the money come from to pay for the already promised income tax cuts and tax credits? Those tax credits rise in the forth year of the carbon tax by an already determined amount, but if there is less carbon use to tax, there WILL be a shortfall and that money has to come from somewhere. Where?

The second reason I have not yet seen touched on anywhere else, as everyone has been busy trying to figure out what it is going to cost individuals and business, but it is something that makes the revenue neutral claim a totally fraudulent one.

Just how are all of the cost increases that the Government of Canada are going to have to pay out because of the Green Shift going to be paid for?

That's right. The millions of dollars extra that it will cost the Canadian Government, to heat all of those massive buildings across this great country of ours, to power the computers & office lighting in those buildings, , keep the RCMP, Coast Guard & armed forces moving, idle the PM's parked limo, keep Dion's night light powered up, or just about anything else that you can think of that is required just to operate a government on a daily basis will have to be paid for. But if every dollar collected is going back to the taxpayer as a tax cut or credit as claimed by the LPC; just how do all of these increased costs, which are directly the result of the green shift, going to be funded?

Revenue neutral my ass. Just how do you Liberals figure you will slip these costs past the AG?


Spin away.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Just how do you Liberals figure you will slip these costs past the AG?"

In a brown envelope while dining at Luigis, that's how!!

Never underestimate a liberal.

Anonymous said...

I love these idiots on the radio and news from Suziki's "independant" research blabbing about how it's not going to impact you in the pocket book...

Whenever I hear them spouting off about it not going to affect the bottom line I like to comment on their $350 designer jeans, $250 burks sandels, $195 natural fibre polo golf shirt, $250 jacket, $10 Moca, Frapa, wtf drink, living in Their million dollar tax free homes in North or West Vancouver if not the British properties, which use natural gas for heat and hot water (assuming they actually shower, do laundry, or anything else like the rest of us) with coal generated electricity and their $40k-$60k Hybrid Car/SUV and point out that all of these things will be effected by Dion's wonderful eco friendly carbon tax...makes me wanna B^%$# slap someone...

But hey... it's all about cutting down on GHG emmisions that are over 98% water... Give your F%$# head a shake people...a Volcano in a single eruption gives off more GHG polution then all Human kind can generate in a year

jad said...

Check out this and this.

I think they need to change the Kool-aid mixture, it doesn't seem to be working any more.

Anonymous said...

LMAO...Anon....Volcano's don't vote or pay taxes

MrEd

Anonymous said...

Are you saying that the Liberal claim that the Green shift is revenue neutral = lie?

You know you could be sued for saying something like that.....if it was not true =)

I never thought about the extra costs that the Feds would have to pay themselves. Nice catch, I wonder why Dion has never mentioned those costs when flogging his plan.

Anonymous said...

Why would the Liberals even listen to the Auditor General?

They didn't when the cost over runs with the gun registry were first flagged by the AG, and the same goes for the HRDC boondoggle and the warnings over Adscam.

The Liberals just don't care.

Ardvark said...

The next time that you here a Liberal make the revenue neutral claim, ask them how all of these directly related increased costs from the shift are going to paid? Don't forget to remind them of the "putting it in law" part of their plan which would make it illegal to shift these costs onto the taxpayer.

And watch them squirm.

Anonymous said...

Since the nutty professor has admitted that this tax will increase the cost of certain items Canadians don't want (like cars, warm homes, food, etc.) I wonder if the additional GST collected is part of the revenue neutral he talks about?