Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
That isn't the question. The question is how much you should benefit from the hard work of your father once you're an adult. And how much the prospects of a child of a single mother who works at Winner's should be narrowed because of the circumstances of his birth. Should one have a big leg-up buying his own house, while the other can never scrape together a down-payment?
Nope. We're rapidly moving towards a society where around 20 per cent of people will live in households with high incomes and good jobs, 30-40 per cent will have precarious jobs, mostly in the service industry, and the rest won't have the skills to find regular work.
You can be in that top 20 per cent yourself and still believe the social cohesion and general security and prosperity of your fellow-citizens affects your own happiness. When doctors and bankers are all the children and grandchildren of doctors and bankers, and grocery store clerks and drywallers are all the children and grandchildren of grocery store clerks and drywallers, social cohesion breaks down. When people end up going to school, marrying, and having children only with people of similar backgrounds, we develop a very narrow sense of 'we'. Civility goes down. Crime, fraud, and and the destruction of public property goes up. The rich, afraid to leave their affluent bubbles, come to live in enclaves just as restrictive as the poor.
The story of Estrada's father becomes less likely when only the children of the affluent are raised in the right neighbourhoods that have the good schools that secure the high-paying jobs that are the only way of getting ahead. And really, what's the difference between houses being priced out of the reach of average Canadians because of rich foreigners, and being priced out of the reach of average Canadians because of rich Canadians?
Edit: And just to be clear, I'm talking about using inheritance taxes to pay for our public health care, education, and pension systems, whose long-term viability is in doubt.
|
The problem is your are lumping 2 problems, and suggesting they can be solved by double dipping into the people - by your own admission - that are best positioned to utilize the wealth
Why won't the rest have the skills to find regular work? If the answer is that training/schooling is too expensive, then i agree 100% we need to have a better system in place to get people the education they need.
Do we need to ensure that the average Canadian can afford housing? Absolutely. (So tax housing??? - Not sure of the solution to this issue!)
The actual biggest issues IMO are the access to funding for job creation/entrepreneurs and the education about money from a young age.
Jobs are disappearing because of technology. The bigger issue that this new generation isn't creating jobs.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/201505/l...n-decline.html
(Lots of good articles on this issue)
So is taking money from people positioned to create new jobs - the people who had successful parents, better education, etc, and giving to the government, really going to solve any of these issue?
You bring in the health care system and pension and that the inheritance tax should be used for these. So how does this help employ the 40% of people in your example who need jobs? Unless you believe the government actually 'creates' jobs....
Estrada's example above is becoming less common because people are not able to just start a business and earn. And even if they do, it is so difficult to stay afloat with the government pinching them for every penny to support the social programs and their own 'job creation'
This boils down to another argument that people who earn need to support - to an ever increasing degree - those that don't. Not in teaching or creating job opportunites, but in the social services. Giving more $$ to the government and hoping they can solve the problem.