You Can't Always Get What You Want
Apr 10, 2007
As expected, everyone wanted a piece of the Doer gang after the budget came down last Wednesday. “Not enough” was the mantra once again, whether you were looking for tax cuts, program spending, money for Lake Winnipeg and water clean-up, child care, etc, etc.
Of course, if you listen to the pundits you’d think the ship was sinking in Manitoba. It gets one to thinking about sucking and blowing, and how Manitoba’s so-called business elite has become incredibly adept at the practice.
The usual budget day suspects – Dave Angus, Adrienne Batra, Shannon Martin, and James Carr – talked to everyone they could find about how the government was selling Manitoba down the river on the tax cut front. We are no longer competitive. Saskatchewan is the new Mecca. If we don’t eliminate the payroll tax we’ve seen our final business start-up. Last one out turn off the lights.
Yet in the budget there was a new raft of tax cuts announced that would, you would think, be welcomed by the business community. One has to ask: where were these people in the 1990s? Aren’t things improved on the tax cut front since the last decade? For example, ask any small business owner (which make up the vast majority of businesses in Manitoba) what the small business tax rate was in 1999 and what it is today, and the answer you get may surprise you.
The fact is everyone wants the businesses we have here in this province to be able to compete and be profitable. What is often difficult to buy into is the argument that we must slash taxes and make huge concessions to the business community in order to “grow the tax pie”. Many don’t buy the notion that rock bottom tax rates will mean everyone will want to start a business or move their business here because you are guaranteed to get rich, rich, rich. Many don’t buy the argument that if we keep slashing taxes, we’ll somehow have more tax revenue because the government gets to tax all the profits that the business community will surely be raking in.
The argument goes something like this: make huge cuts to the business tax and everyone will get a taste of the successes down the road. Hasn’t that been tried in the past, with the result being that many business leaders made a lot more money but regular people got left behind, having to pay more for services that used to be delivered by government?
And that’s the thing: when you cut taxes you usually end up cutting the revenue that government would be using to do a bunch of things that people find useful. Things like fixing sewers, building and maintaining highways, hiring cops or social workers or college instructors, building hospitals or schools or universities, investing in skills training and in health care. Those are some of the things MGEU was advocating for: a bigger investment in the services Manitobans depend on.
Look at the Province’s website. Since 1999, Manitoba has:
- reduced the small business tax rate from 8% in 1999 (highest in Canada) to 3% in 2007 (lowest in Canada), and next year it will go to 2%;
- increased the threshold so more businesses are considered small businesses in order to take advantage of the lower small business rates;
- reduced the corporate tax rate;
- eliminated the residential Education Support Levy;
- reduced education taxes on farmland;
- increased the education property tax credit; and
- in this budget alone offered $119 million in new personal income tax cuts and $93 million in new business tax cuts.
And those are just a few of them. These seem like steps forward for the business community and for Manitobans. But there were no congratulatory messages out there from the gang at the Manitoba Club. It wasn’t enough. Or it wasn’t fast enough. It never is. Why do so many media outlets continue to treat these people like experts when what they are are representatives of interest groups who exist almost exclusively to say this: we need more tax cuts.
But let’s be fair. The Manitoba Child Care Association didn’t think they got enough. Students? Not enough. Universities? End the freeze and let us charge more in tuition and ancillary fees. Farmers? Not enough. Poverty groups? Need more.
No one gets everything they want on budget day, but most got something. Don’t be fooled by those who say Manitoba is on the road to ruin.
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Federal Transfers have balloned, so Doer can do more than Filmon ever did. Filmon did not have the luxury , and had some hard choices to make. When I look what Doer's tax cuts are going to do for me, I will save a whopping $43 in income tax. Not even $1 a week. I will also see some reduction of education tax, but you can bet the school Boards will jack my taxes ( again) . Where the government reduces a little , they always find a way to get it back, with an increase in fees. Also health services have been reduced in my area, with our so-called hospital is now a glorified walk-in clinic and band-aid station. You can no longer even have a operation or baby without going to Winnipeg. The hospital here has become a place old people go to die. 10 years ago, you could have major surgery or have a baby here. Now they have to call a doctor in , because their is not a full time doctor. The government has pissed the bed when it comes to running the health care system.
JimCotton - 2007-04-11 22:20