| # "From the Left" ## The 1998 Guelph Tribune columns March 25, 1998 In an overwhelming display of good sense, city councillors decided to take control of this year's budget process out of the hands of the Finance and Administration Committee. Only two councillors, Dan Schnurr and Phil Cumming, were opposed. They are both members of the committee, and wanted to use it to cut city services rather than increase taxes. Even their Tory cronies around the horseshoe recognize that there is no sense tilting at the taxation windmills after what Mike Harris did to them. But our two municipal Don Quixotes continue to do chase their impossible dream, refusing to recognize reality, even when it threatens to knock them off their horses. A couple of weeks ago, Lynda Prior was one of them. Actually, she still is. She's just a bit subdued now as she recovers from a case of foot in mouth disease she caught after taking some bad advice. Prior wanted to throw a lot of hard working city employees out of work. She didn't really care about the devastation this would wreak upon their families, as long as her own property tax didn't go up. Prior is unrepentant about this callous disregard for the people who keep our city running, but she has abandoned the fight. She can see that the $2.5 million shortfall from provincial down loading is an insurmountable barrier. Prior has now set her sights on a 3.5 per cent tax increase. Even this can't be accomplished without further cuts to city services. Odds are that we will end up with an increase closer to 5 per cent. This whole budget exercise shows the true results of the trickle down economics preached by right wing politicians and their financier pals. This theory, in its simplest terms, says that cutting taxes puts more money into people's pockets. This money gets spent. The spending results in increased employment in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economy. The increased employment puts even more money into people's pockets. It is a simple minded solution to complicated problems, and, not surprisingly, it doesn't work. The only thing that has trickled down is pain. Any money that working families could have saved through Harris's tax cut will be lost through city taxes and user fees. In the meanwhile, child poverty continues to rise as families struggle with the cruel realities of neo-conservative economic policy. Instead of money trickling down onto the heads of the poor, it is flooding up to the already wealthy. While the poor become poorer, the rich get richer. A tax cut could have been possible, if a fair taxation system had been put in place by higher levels of government. A measure as simple as the Tobin tax, devised by a Nobel prize winning Harvard economist, could have eliminated the deficit quickly and painlessly. This tax would put a 0.2 per cent levy on all international financial transactions. A tremendous amount of wealth is made in the international money markets, and none of it is taxed. With the Tobin tax, the bond traders would still do very well for themselves while being forced to contribute something towards easing the social chaos they cause. Unfortunately, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have the political will to do this. As a result, our city councillors have to operate in an environment where they have very few options. Given the realities within which they must make their choices, a tax freeze is politically and morally impossible. |