The next time a voter meets a Reform MP on the Prairies, here’s a suggested question or two:
- Does the Reform Party believe governments should add to the public debt, which our children will have to pay, in order to give their parents a tax break now?
- When did the party adopt the policy that governments should borrow in order to cut taxes that disproportionately help the affluent?
The MP likely will say it has not, that deficit elimination and debt reduction remain the party’s core fiscal position, that debt and deficits are Liberal and NDP policy.
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Reformers think tax cuts are the icing which follow balanced books.
Don’t believe them.
Last week, the Reform finance critic was praising exactly such deficit-inducing policies, apparently because they have been employed by a Conservative ally of Reform.
Medicine Hat MP Monte Solberg was on his feet, praising the Tory Ontario government for its May 5 budget which once again cut taxes.
The fiscally-conservative Reformer contrasted that with what he said was the federal Liberal refusal to give tax relief.
“Why is it that the government of Ontario understands that money belongs to the taxpayers?” asked Solberg. “Why can it figure out but the federal finance minister does not seem to have a clue?”
What was wrong with that question?
Simply put, the Ontario Tories, entering an election year, decided they would rather give a tax break than balance the books.
In the 1998-99 fiscal year, the Ontario government is projecting it will spend $4.2 billion more than it takes in.
It is promising balanced books within two years, maybe sooner.
Yet economists insist the books could be balanced this year if the Tories – who ran on a Reform-like platform of deep cuts to social program spending, firing civil servants, reducing welfare payments and setting up boot camps for young offenders – had not cut taxes by 30 percent in three years.
The estimate is that revenues would be $4.6 billion higher this year without the tax cuts, meaning there would be a $400 million surplus.
Instead, the provincial debt load will increase by more than $4 billion.
And Reform, which considers premier Mike Harris one of theirs, apparently thinks this is just fine.
Solberg scoffed at finance minister Paul Martin’s claim that Ottawa has offered a variety of targeted tax breaks while still balancing the books well ahead of Ontario.
“When is the finance minister going to figure it out?” asked the indignant MP. “That money belongs to taxpayers, not to his greedy caucus and greedy cabinet.”
Well, no, actually. In Ontario, that money being used for tax breaks belongs to the lenders.
The immediate benefit of the tax break belongs to lucky current adult tax payers. The bill for the damage will belong to their children and grandchildren.
