Tax Cuts for Complainers

I wrote here a couple weeks ago that Canada's GST is going down by 1% to 5%. I also thought there was going to be complainers who don't like tax cuts. I didn't have to wait long to find one.

This laughable article from the Toronto Star illustrates. Granted the author writes for the "Living" section, but still, lets look at some quotes:

"Two hundred bucks. That's about how much federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's Halloween mini-budget will put back in my pocket at tax time. No, I am not going to drop it in a cross-border shopping spree. The price of gas š„ì in a year of record oil company profits in an already heavily subsidized industry š„ì hardly makes it worth the drive."

$200 is nothing to laugh at, but how the author makes the leap from tax cut received to not being able to cross border shop due to gas prices coming from a "heavily subsidized industry" is impressive. The C buck at a wacking $1.10 today more than offsets gas prices, which are actually about the same now as they were last year at this time when the dollar was $0.85.

Besides, the soaring dollar is already hurting Canadian retailers, including the indie merchants I patronize in my 'hood because it's ultimately good for my community š„ì and real estate values.

Retailers who import goods from the US or internationally (which is most of them by the way) are made BETTER off by the C$ being stronger. Buying something at US$10 and reselling it for C$10 makes you a lot more money now than it did 5 years ago. And regardless what does the strong C$ have to do with tax cuts which is what this article was about? Oh but the author made sure she noted she patronizes "indie retailers", well good for her.

Oh sure, the lowest wage earners among us, some 385,000 Canadians, male and female, were removed from the tax rolls. But, for the vast majority of women, who already earn less than men, the cuts still will not mean better work, health care, housing or transit.

Right so, 385,000 people pay no tax with the new tax cuts and as she points out helpfully that includes "male and female" people. "But for the vast majority of women the tax cuts won't do anything"... so she apparently doesn't care about low income men or families? I would assume, as the author postulates, that if the "vast majority" of women earn less than men, which I believe to be true, then they would be helped proportionally more than men by those cuts. I don't know what "the cuts still will not mean better work" means. If I bring home more after tax income for the same work I think that is "better work". But what do I know. I'm a man.

And that is really the crux of the article. It has nothing to do with tax cuts, or cross border shopping or the strength of the Canadian dollar. The author is apparently an angry feminist in a post-feminist world. She complains that the tax cuts won't help women "put more fresh food on the table, will not protect them from abusive partners and will not aid the isolated elderly". She is aghast that there is GST charged on "tampons, diapers, birth control and baby food". She is absolutely horrified that the government "tries to buy us off with our own money". And she is really really really pissed off that the government calls women prostitutes (or at least metaphorically) "Well, there's a word for women who sell themselves. No way is the Harper government going to hang that one on me."

So in multiple sentences she is mad that 1) the government is cutting taxes because it won't help achieve her socal objectives, 2) the government charges taxes on specific items which she feels should be tax free and 3) by cutting taxes the government is in effect bribing the male populance in order to continue subjugating women.

Last month, after the Throne Speech, polls indicated men liked what they heard much more than did women, sometimes as much as two to one. So you'd think that the government would think about winning over half the electorate.

This is literally one of the worst articles I have ever read. I don't know whether to be aghast at her over-the-top prose or hackneyed writing style, her complete lack of economic or financial knowledge or deeply insulted by the insinuation that because I support tax cuts I implicitly support the metaphorical "abuse" of women.

/rant