Quote:
Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
As for the "Green Shift" and the Green's "Ecotax", they are similar. However, Dion's "Green Shift" is primarily focused on greenhouse gases. The Greens tax looks at all environmental issues. The theory is that currently industry is being "subsidized" by not including the full cost of production into their product. For example, sulfur emitting plants cause acid rain, which causes health problems and dead lakes that need to be cleaned. It isn't the company that has to pay for the environmental effects of acid rain, but they should. So they would tax the product coming from that factory in such a manner that (a)the government would recoup the money they require to handle the negative impacts and (b) consumers would not want to pay the higher price, so they may choose to go with product B which has less of an environmental impact.
As for the NDP platform, I don't think they were as well prepared as they should have been from an online perspective. Their web site hasn't updated their platform since 2006:
http://www.ndp.ca/platform
And there is no link there from the main page, so it isn't any wonder you couldn't find it. |
That's a good arguement, one the liberals have been awful at promoting. I understand it, to an extent it is true but two things:
a) it's a slippery slope to start taxing producers and consumers. Because, I think I can make a better arguement that everyone around me that has smoked owes me money because my health was negatively impacted. Come to think of it, my parents owe me about a hundred grand!! I also feel that they guy who planted a tree in his backyard, and has restricted my view of downtown owes me money because he just decreased the value of the view from my office. And lastly, everyone who owns a Harley bike and has driven close enough to me that I'm distrubed by the sound of those things owes me a few bucks as well.
Your example is true, and so are my 3. I'm not sure we can draw a bright line to differentiate what is ok to tax and what is not.
b) The Liberals have shown that it costs billions to simply manage gun registries. Even the most deep rooted liberal supporter has to admit this would be an administrative gong show ... they'll need to increases the carbon tax further just to pay for all this administration.
The real long term solution is not fake value transfer mechanisms. Value transfer mchanisms never solve things, they hide things. People right now need to feel the pain of buying expensive gasoline because demand has to change. In the long run the next trillionaire is going to be someone who develops a solid reliable set of replacements. Liberal tax schemes won't.