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Liberals appearing wobbly on promises
By MURRAY CAMPBELL
UPDATED AT 11:18 AM EST         Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004
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Winners and losers alike, politicians have always taken comfort in the election-night maxim that "the voters have spoken." Sometimes, however, the trouble is in figuring out what they said.
Take Dalton McGuinty, for example. His Liberals won 72 seats last October after waging a campaign that promised to revitalize social programs while also balancing the budget and holding the line on taxes. It was a three-cornered stool and any suggestion that one of the legs was weaker than the others was met with self-confident ridicule by Mr. McGuinty. He stared out of our television sets, cited the endorsements of Bay Street economists and said he could pay for $5.9-billion in new investments by rolling back Progressive Conservative tax cuts and eliminating waste.
A couple of the legs are looking wobbly now. The Liberals discovered a budget deficit of nearly twice what they had been counting on and recently they've been sending out the artillery to soften voters up for much-delayed reinvestment in services and perhaps even the end to other programs. There's talk of higher user fees but the government is holding firm on its pledge not to raise corporate or personal income taxes.
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara affirmed this yesterday when he inaugurated the budget-making season by appearing before the legislature's finance committee. "Ontarians know we can only live well by living within our means and they have told us to make that happen."
It's a nice phrase, "living within our means," because it denotes responsibility and maturity. But what does it mean? You and I, for example, face a choice of balancing our household budgets by either earning more or spending less. The Finance Minister faces the same choice but he's determined that he will not pursue the traditional avenues of bringing in revenue.
"We are not going to be raising personal income tax as a way of solving the deficit problems that we inherited," he said. It's an unequivocal statement and it reflects what John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation believes was the message of the Oct. 2 election. "Voters did not elect a government to raise their taxes," he said.
It's not the only view, of course. New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton, perhaps not surprisingly, believes voters "wanted to see reinvestment in public services." And Hugh Mackenzie of the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argues the demand for renewed government programs could be met, even in the context of the projected $5.6-billion deficit, by a 2 per cent increase in personal income tax rates that would cost an average taxpayer just $2.50 a week.
You don't have to buy either one of these opposing points of view, of course. It's enough to simply watch as the government floats trial balloons about selling government assets, gutting the seniors' drug program and requiring individual premiums for health care. The Liberals made, by one estimate, 231 campaign promises and they're reaping heaps of trouble for breaking -- or appearing to break -- a great number of those. And yet they won't irk Mr. Williamson by raising taxes.
Well, not all taxes anyway. Mr. Sorbara talks more and more these days about the possibilities of "non-tax revenue" -- fee hikes for everything from drivers' licences to provincial park permits. He raised yesterday the possibility of an assault on $1-billion of grants and tax credits to businesses and economic sectors handed out by governments for a generation or more. None of these moves would, strictly speaking, violate the pledge made to the taxpayers' federation but Mr. Williamson is taking a dim view anyway. More intriguing than any of this, however, is the prospect that the government will abandon its quest to balance next year's budget. Liberals are talking about running a deficit and accepting the punishment that the balanced-budget law requires. Mr. Sorbara cast a glance at that bolt hole yesterday. "If the choice is between a 25 per cent pay cut for ministers and decimating programs just to achieve that objective, my choice is for the pay cut," he said.
mcampbell@globeandmail.ca
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By MURRAY CAMPBELL
UPDATED AT 11:18 AM EST         Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004
Advertisement
Winners and losers alike, politicians have always taken comfort in the election-night maxim that "the voters have spoken." Sometimes, however, the trouble is in figuring out what they said.
Take Dalton McGuinty, for example. His Liberals won 72 seats last October after waging a campaign that promised to revitalize social programs while also balancing the budget and holding the line on taxes. It was a three-cornered stool and any suggestion that one of the legs was weaker than the others was met with self-confident ridicule by Mr. McGuinty. He stared out of our television sets, cited the endorsements of Bay Street economists and said he could pay for $5.9-billion in new investments by rolling back Progressive Conservative tax cuts and eliminating waste.
A couple of the legs are looking wobbly now. The Liberals discovered a budget deficit of nearly twice what they had been counting on and recently they've been sending out the artillery to soften voters up for much-delayed reinvestment in services and perhaps even the end to other programs. There's talk of higher user fees but the government is holding firm on its pledge not to raise corporate or personal income taxes.
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara affirmed this yesterday when he inaugurated the budget-making season by appearing before the legislature's finance committee. "Ontarians know we can only live well by living within our means and they have told us to make that happen."
It's a nice phrase, "living within our means," because it denotes responsibility and maturity. But what does it mean? You and I, for example, face a choice of balancing our household budgets by either earning more or spending less. The Finance Minister faces the same choice but he's determined that he will not pursue the traditional avenues of bringing in revenue.
"We are not going to be raising personal income tax as a way of solving the deficit problems that we inherited," he said. It's an unequivocal statement and it reflects what John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation believes was the message of the Oct. 2 election. "Voters did not elect a government to raise their taxes," he said.
It's not the only view, of course. New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton, perhaps not surprisingly, believes voters "wanted to see reinvestment in public services." And Hugh Mackenzie of the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argues the demand for renewed government programs could be met, even in the context of the projected $5.6-billion deficit, by a 2 per cent increase in personal income tax rates that would cost an average taxpayer just $2.50 a week.
You don't have to buy either one of these opposing points of view, of course. It's enough to simply watch as the government floats trial balloons about selling government assets, gutting the seniors' drug program and requiring individual premiums for health care. The Liberals made, by one estimate, 231 campaign promises and they're reaping heaps of trouble for breaking -- or appearing to break -- a great number of those. And yet they won't irk Mr. Williamson by raising taxes.
Well, not all taxes anyway. Mr. Sorbara talks more and more these days about the possibilities of "non-tax revenue" -- fee hikes for everything from drivers' licences to provincial park permits. He raised yesterday the possibility of an assault on $1-billion of grants and tax credits to businesses and economic sectors handed out by governments for a generation or more. None of these moves would, strictly speaking, violate the pledge made to the taxpayers' federation but Mr. Williamson is taking a dim view anyway. More intriguing than any of this, however, is the prospect that the government will abandon its quest to balance next year's budget. Liberals are talking about running a deficit and accepting the punishment that the balanced-budget law requires. Mr. Sorbara cast a glance at that bolt hole yesterday. "If the choice is between a 25 per cent pay cut for ministers and decimating programs just to achieve that objective, my choice is for the pay cut," he said.
mcampbell@globeandmail.ca
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
