i've been terse about this because i don't think it matters a whole lot. all i've pointed out is that if gerald butts thinks it's great politics, he's probably in for a surprise when he looks at his party's coffers this time next year and the potentially negative poll movement from it.

the council of canadians is a kind of left-populist front in canada, and it's a useful organizing tool for what it does. but, the reality is that populists are terrible at economics - even left-populists that call themselves socialists tend to fall into these inherently right-wing zero-sum concepts of budget management, and these naive ideas about balancing budgets that make conservatives giddy.

this article doesn't mention a thing about any kind of meaningful economic goal, it's just pushing the idea that the government needs to collect money to cover costs - which is completely false in a fiat monetary system.

here's the option in front of voters: the conservatives want to continue to "starve the beast" by pushing structural deficits (and using them to agitate for cuts), while the liberals want to close tax loopholes in order to collect tax revenue to pay down debt. if the liberals take the money and destroy it (which is what debt repayment is), they're actually reducing the amount of money circulating in the economy, which is broadly recessionary. they should be printing money, not destroying it. if the conservatives let the money sit in bank accounts, perhaps offshore, it's just accruing interest rather than promoting growth. this is actually less bad in theory, but it's probably not a measurable difference.

i'm in favour of keynesian-style government spending, but that's not what the liberals are doing, and it's not underlying the narrative: if this is a wealth transfer, it's a transfer from independent businesses to trust funds, banks and much larger corporations that get a credit boost from the debt repayment.

it's fundamentally dishonest to argue that you have to increase revenue in order to increase spending. but, if you're going to walk down that path, you'd be better off lifting the corporate tax rate. i mean, if that's what this is really about - revenue - then they're taking a highly inefficient path in doing it. taxing doctors isn't going to balance the budget....but taxing oil companies might.

and, how did we get here? the answer is populist economics, and that flawed zero-sum concept of budgeting.

so, what is the actual outcome of this policy?

- it won't make any substantive difference on the deficit.
- it won't increase the amount that the government can spend.
- it doesn't look like the government is looking to increase the amount it spends, anyways.

what actually happens?

- a transfer of wealth from independent business owners to large banks and multinational corporations.

if the liberals were floating these tax loopholes to increase infrastructure spending, that would be another thing. it would still be unnecessary, but it's one way to present the information, anyways - if they think that works for them politically, that's their prerogative. they're not doing that.

i know the council thinks anything that looks like redistribution is a good path, but it should reconsider this in the context of reality, rather than through the filter of populist economic thinking.

https://canadians.org/blog/council-canadians-supports-fair-taxation-end-income-sprinkling-wealthy