Alberta’s new premier Jason Kenney would have us believe that giveaways to billion-dollar corporations will somehow benefit the average person.
Apparently, cutting taxes for huge, unprecedentedly profitable companies will somehow inspire them to create jobs.
This, of course, is the height of wishful thinking and the result of successful lobbying.
The only businesses that without question could use tax breaks are the small- and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of basically any economy, and ours is no exception.
But the bloated, multinational conglomerates that post billions in profits every year do not need any more handouts.
Apparently, welfare is only bad when the money goes to helping people who actually need it.
But corporate welfare seems to always receive a conservative’s stamp of approval.
Despite the fact that since Reagan in the U.S. and Thatcher in the U.K. first enacted trickle-down policies some 40 years ago — with other western nations like our own following suit — the only result has been soaring wealth inequality.
Top paid CEOs have since then seen their compensations jump astronomically, while the average working stiff has been lucky to see the most negligible of barely noticeable gains. All while costs of living increase substantially, arguably leaving workers that much farther behind.
Time and again, whenever taxes for the super rich have been slashed, the only people to benefit have been, well, the super rich.
Companies only hire when increased demand in their products or services justify the expense of taking on new salaries. Otherwise, corporate handouts only end up redistributed to already wealthy stakeholders at best, or dumped into legal offshore tax havens at worst.
And as government revenues are eroded, conservatives start trying to convince voters the only way to proceed is even more tax cuts for the wealthy — because that’s worked out so well to date. And before long, public coffers begin to run so low the case for privatization inevitably gets tossed about as the only solution.
There are common claims among conservative circles about spending problems in this province, but the reality is we have a substantial revenue problem. For far too long, we’ve tried to ride the oil and gas gravy train as though it would never end, and we are now paying for our collective lack of foresight.
Meanwhile, if we had tax systems similar to every other province in the country, Alberta’s government would generate billions more every year in the ongoing effort to deliver services from health care to education and infrastructure development as well as environmental protection.
Based on decades of stats and data, one could comfortably predict that not only will Kenney’s tax cuts not restore Alberta to past prosperity, but instead end up having a reverse effect, punching an even bigger hole in our bottom line as we struggle to pay for crucial services as our population keeps growing, and aging.
Crippling austerity measures are all but certainly around the corner.
But hey, at least the one per cent will be doing just fine.
