In keeping with the government’s vision of making Canada a low-tax jurisdiction, the Conservatives have been gradually cutting taxes on corporate profits since 2007.
By 2015 under this plan, the share of federal government programs paid for by corporate income taxes will have shrunk to 12.3 per cent from 20.8 per cent in 2000.
Do we really want to 'look more like Ireland?'
Shortly after rolling out the Harper government’s first budget in 2006, a boisterous Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was asked during a visit to New York what Canada would look like in five years under a Conservative majority regime.
“It will look more like Ireland — more dynamic, more attractive to investors, brighter, more positive, outward-looking,” Flaherty said in a published report of his comments.
Perhaps in part due to his Irish heritage, Flaherty has long been a fan of Ireland’s fundamental economic strategy — rock-bottom corporate income tax rates.
But with Ireland's low-tax Celtic Tiger now dead, the Harper government no longer cites the Irish example to promote corporate tax cuts in Canada. Nonetheless, despite the dire state of Ottawa's finances, the Conservatives are sticking to the low-tax policy pioneered in nearly bankrupt Ireland.
Billions in profits boost bank shares
Banks in the United States and Europe are getting hit by bonus taxes and a welter of new regulation but here in Canada, where policy makers see less need to penalize the sector, the Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto Dominion Bank thrashed earnings expectations with combined first quarter profit of $3.4 billion, driving their shares higher.Canadian corporate operating profits rose to $65.5 billion in the last three months of 2010, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday, a 7.9 per cent increase over the previous quarter.
StatsCan said the increases were widespread across the economy, with 19 of 22 industries reporting higher earnings.
The rise followed moderate declines in the previous two quarters. Operating revenues were up 2.8 per cent for the sixth straight quarter.
Operating earnings in the non-financial sector increased by 7.3 per cent, with the biggest gains in mining and oil and gas.
Financial institutions climbed by 9.5 per cent as insurance firms rebounded from a poor performance in the third quarter. Chartered banks rose 5.6 per cent.
Profits up 9% for the year
Compared with the same period a year earlier, operating profits for all industries were nine per cent.
By the end of 2010, profits had grown by 5.5 per cent since the beginning of the recovery, regaining 56 per cent of the ground lost during the recession.
It's looking like a better year for dividend increases
Please sir, I want some more dividends.
Flush with cash and encouraged by a strengthening economy, companies are doling out dividend increases to the delight of yield-hungry investors.
And with corporate profits rebounding strongly, the trend is likely to gather momentum over the next couple of years, analysts predict.
This month alone, Canadian companies including Rogers Communications Inc., Shoppers Drug Mart Corp., TransCanada Corp. and Russel Metals Inc. have raised their quarterly payments, signalling their confidence in both the economy and the strength of their balance sheets.
Armine Yalnizyan: Five economic reasons to say no to more corporate tax cuts in CanadaLeast effective job creation measure: According to the nation’s official number crunchers, if you want policy to encourage job creation, cutting corporate taxes is the weakest option (20 cents growth from every dollar of tax cut). Spending on infrastructure has the most impact ($1.50 on every dollar spent). The Department of Finance shows that spending on income supports for the unemployed and for low-income Canadians has an equally big pop, and housing initiatives are almost as good ($1.40 for every dollar spent).
Little impact on investments: Federal corporate tax rates have fallen from 28 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2010. Business investment (in non-residential structures and equipment) as a share of GDP was 12.4 percent in 2000. It was also 12.4 percent in 2009, and on track for the same in 2010. In the 1960s, the heyday of industrial expansion and economic development in Canada, the federal corporate tax rate was 40 percent. Statistics Canada’s data on business investment starts in 1981. That year the federal corporate tax rate was 36 percent, and business investment represented 11.5 percent of the economy. By 1990 the federal corporate tax had fallen to 28 percent. Business investment had fallen to 10.8 percent of the economy. There are many factors that drive business investment practices, and while taxes are a consideration, they are not the primary factor in investment decisions. The historic evidence shows that a commitment to this strategy is a costly faith-based proposition.
Pay more tax to cut taxes: Since fall 2010 the Harper team has been saying corporate tax cuts “pay for themselves”. But Budget 2009 figures show that reducing the general corporate tax rate from 22.12 percent in 2007 to 18 percent by January 2010 removed $6.7 billion annually from public coffers, right through the worst of the recession. Cutting the rate further this year to 16.5 percent meant another $2.8 billion in foregone revenues annually. The Harper team’s commitment to reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent will reduce the size of the public purse by $13.7 billion annually by 2012, according to Finance estimates, at which time the federal budgetary deficit will be between $21 and $26 billion (the range of Finance, PBO and IMF estimates). Financing this tax cut requires borrowing more money. The average Canadian taxpayer will pay interest on the borrowed money to provide a tax break for profitable corporations.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Tax Breaks=Corporate Welfare
The Rich Get Richer
Executive compensation
The $1,700,000,000 golden handshake
Inside the best deal Frank Stronach ever made.
In the past 12 years, there’s been a 444 per cent salary increase for Canada’s top CEOs. The top 10 earners collected a total of $60.7 million in 1995—by 2007, that number had jumped to $330.3 million. For example, Paul Desmarais, CEO of Power Corp, made more than $5 million in 1995; in 2007, his take-home was more than $29 million.Bank of Montreal CEO pay jumps 28 percent to C$9.5 million
Average annual pay of a top Canadian CEO: $7 million
The total average compensation for Canada’s 100 best-paid CEOs was $6.64 million in 2009, compared to the average Canadian income of $42,988 and the average minimum wage worker’s income of $19,877.
The biggest pay package went to Aaron Regent at Barrick Gold Corp., who made $24.2 million in 2009, according to Mackenzie’s calculations. In second place was Hunter Harrison at Canadian National Railway Co., at $17.3 million, followed by Gerald Schwartz at Onex Corp., at $16.7 million.
A Globe and Mail review of pay for CEOs at Canada’s 100 largest public companies in 2009 shows top executives across Canada received, The cash portion of pay packages – salary and cash bonuses – did show substantial growth, with a combined median increase of 7.6 per cent. (Medians reflect the experience of the middle-of-the-pack CEO, while averages can be skewed by CEOs with particularly large or small compensation amounts.)
A list of the Top 50 Canadian CEOs and their astronomical take-home pay increases
Canada’s richest CEOs pocket the average Canadian wage of $40,237 by 9:04 a.m. January 2nd – before most Canadians have booted up their computer for another year of work,” says Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) Research Associate Hugh Mackenzie.
The CCPA released a report on January 2, 2009 showing that the 100 highest paid CEO's at publicly traded corporations in Canada earned an average of $10.4 million in total compensation in 2007, which was an average increase of 22%, from its $8.5 million average in 2006.
This compared with an average pay hike of only 3.2% to $40,237 for the average Canadian worker during 2007.
"Compared with ordinary Canadians, whose wages have been stagnant for 30 years, Canada's economic downturn promises to hit the masses far harder than the best paid 100 CEOs," Mackenzie said. "They have enjoyed a decade of record pay hikes and will land on a softer cushion if they stumble from their lofty heights in the New Year."
The wage gap between the average Canadian worker and CEOs has been growing steadily over the past decade. In 2007, Canada's top 50 CEOs earned 398 times more than the average worker, compared with 85 times in 1995.
MacKenzie said that between 1998 and 2007 the average compensation of top CEOs increased by 147%, adjusted for inflation. This compared with a 3% decline in inflation-adjusted weekly wages for average Canadians and a 6% rise for those on the minimum wage.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Has Gadhafi Been Reading Lyndon LaRouche
During the interview with the BBC, which took place in a restaurant in Tripoli, Gaddafi blamed outsiders for the civil turmoil, adding: "It's al-Qaeda. They went into military bases and siezed arms and terrorised the people.
"The people who had the weapons were youngsters and they're starting to put down their weapons now as the drugs that al-Qaeda gave them wear off."
He previously claimed that al-Qaeda had drugged demonstrators by spiking their "Nescafe".
LaRouche puts some sociopolitical and intellectual movements into the "positive" category and some into the negative. He believes the Reformation militated against the nation-state (and human well-being) while the Renaissance was an inspirational positive. He believes in classical humanism and defines philosophy and philosophers based on their contributions to it. In order to arrive at these conclusions, he has researched the underlying fundaments of what he (and many others) call the Anglo-American axis (or empire) and traced it back to Venetian bankers and even earlier. For LaRouche, Western history is a recitation of Anglo conspiracies that have ever attempted to draw ever-tighter the noose of mercantilist central banking and its torrents of debt-laden fiat money.
Charlie Gadhafi
"It's perfect. It's awesome. Every day is just filled with just wins. All we do is put wins in the record books," the 45-year-old actor said. "We win so radically in our underwear before our first cup of coffee, it's scary. People say it's lonely at the top, but I sure like the view." The embattled actor opened up his Beverly Hills home, which he now shares with his two girlfriends and his twin sons with soon-to-be ex-wife Brooke Mueller, to ABC News this weekend.Mind you at least the reporters talking to Gadhafi challenged him unlike the reporters who pandered to Charlie Sheen. Maybe Qaddafi should consider moving to Hollywood, where he would get the fawning respect of the entertainment industry that masquerades as news.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared Monday either to not know that demonstrators in cities throughout Libya are calling for an end to his rule or not accept it, according to excerpts from the interview "No demonstration at all in the streets," he told ABC News and the BBC in a joint interview carried out at a restaurant in Tripoli, excerpts of which were posted on the BBC's website.Gadhafi, wearing sunglasses and clad in brown tribal clothing, refused to accept the reporter's assertion that they were not. "No. No one against us. Against me for what?"
When Rossen said that Sheen was seen as crazy as he talked about being a warlock with tiger's blood, Sheen shrugged. "It's entertaining as hell. I'm laughing. ... Did they expect it to be a normal interview - conventional, boring? No, we're shaking a a tree. We're shaking all the trees."Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told the BBC he is loved by all his people and has denied there have been any protests in Tripoli.
Col Gaddafi said that his people would die to protect him.
He laughed at the suggestion he would leave Libya and said that he felt betrayed by the world leaders who had urged him to quit.
20 Years Of Neo Conservative Propaganda
More than half of Canadians think a family of four can get by on $30,000 a year or less, while a similar number believe that if poor people really want to work, "they can always find a job."
Which leads to: Neighbours dismayed woman forced to live in garage
Det. Sgt. Mike Stones said the woman appears to suffer from dementia and was declared legally incompetent in the fall. His son was named as her guardian. Since then, she has been living in “deplorable” conditions in the attached garage of her son’s home, said Stones.This is the face of poverty in Canada, which the Fraser Institute statistically denies.
Monday, February 28, 2011
US Pakistan Diplomat Accused of Murder CIA Agent
A CIA spy, a hail of bullets, three killed and a US-Pakistan diplomatic row
Did we learn this from CNN? MSNBC? Fox? CBS?ABC?NBC? Disney Channel? Nope we learn it from the Guardian, UK. So far to the left of the American media that they make liberal look; well, conservative.
Pakistan Rejects US Diplomat's Self-Defense Claim
Pakistani police have rejected a detained U.S. diplomat's claim that he acted in self-defense when he shot dead two men last month in the eastern city of Lahore. Police are recommending the diplomat face murder charges.
Lahore Police Chief Aslam Tareen said Friday an investigation revealed Raymond Davis committed what the chief called "cold-blooded murder."
"The eyewitnesses [statements] and forensic reports showed that it has not been the self-defense case. So has tried to fire on them [and] 10 bullets were fired. Therefore, his self-defense plea was considered and that has been rejected by the investigators," Tareen said.
Washington's stance
Speaking to VOA on the latest developments in the case, U.S Embassy spokesperson Courtney Beale reiterated Washington's stance on the issue.
"We regret that this incident resulted in the loss of life. However, eyewitness accounts report [on the day of the incident] that the American acted in self-defense," Beale said. "There is no doubt that he has diplomatic immunity and we are working with the government of Pakistan to resolve this issue."
As American newspapers lifted a self-imposed gag on the CIA links of Raymond Davis, in place on the request of the US administration,
The New York Times reported on Monday that Davis “was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to American government officials.”
This contradicts the US claim that Davis was a member of the ‘technical and administrative staff’ of its diplomatic mission in Pakistan.
Davis was arrested on January 27 after allegedly shooting dead two young motorcyclists at a crowded bus stop in Lahore. American officials say that the arrest came after a ‘botched robbery attempt’.
Pakistani Court Dismisses Bail Plea of US Man
A court in Pakistan Monday dismissed the bail application of an American national, who was arrested in northwest on Friday for illegal stay, court officials said.
Police sources said that Aaron Mark De Haven was working for a private security company.
Police said De Haven is from a security firm "Catalyst Services, " which provides security and accommodation to foreigners working on development projects in the region.
Catalyst Services
Your in-country solution for Middle East and South Asian Operations. You contact us and we do the rest.
Interesting that both these guys are working black ops in Pakistan. And have been outed by Pakistan's Secret Service. And yet in America neither the right wing or liberal media or mass media have covered this obvious coincidence. Not much for investigative journalism as a media standard in Amerika.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Real Educational Reform
However the reality is that in North America public education is generalized unless you are destined to go to university. Graduating from High School gives you a generalized diploma, worth nothing to employers. If you qualify as a potential candidate for a university education you get put into that track. That high school diploma is not generalized, and allows you to enter university post secondary education, if you can afford it.
All other forms of post secondary education; college and trades education, which actually educate/train students for the world of work are not tracked. They are in Europe and Asia which is why they beat out our students. Its not a matter of knowing more math or science but of having access to educated embedded job learning, apprenticeship opportunities beginning in high school and transitioning to post-secondary technical schools.
What’s the problem? The fact that the U.S. is the only industrialized society that relies so heavily on its higher education system to help young people get from the end of compulsory schooling into the workforce with the knowledge and skills to be successful in today’s economy. Despite the fact that nearly all young people now say that they want to go to college and that increasing percentages of high school graduates are in fact enrolling in college, our college completion rate is stuck at about 40 percent. Many organizations are now focused on the challenge of how to increase our college completion rate and have set a very aggressive target of 55 percent by 2025.
But even if this very ambitious improvement goal were to be reached, what is our strategy for getting the other 45 percent of young people the skills and credentials they will need to get launched on a career path that can enable them to earn a family-supporting wage and lead a productive life? This is the big question our report raises, and that you barely acknowledge.
In our search for answers, we draw heavily on two recently published Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) studies that bring important international evidence and experience to bear on the problem we cite, but you never even acknowledge this major section of our report. We point out that throughout Northern Europe from the age of 16 between 40 and 70 percent of young people enroll in programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, have significant employer involvement, and prepare students for careers in a wide range of occupations, not just the traditional trades.
SEE
Obama Embraces Neo-Con Agenda
Losing the Future
Here is the sound of Air America crashing:
Rhode Island school district issues pink slips to nearly 2,000 teachers in effort to deal with massive budget deficit
Guess they missed the Presidents State of the Union speech when he said;
If we take these steps – if we raise expectations for every child, and
give them the best possible chance at an education, from the day
they’re born until the last job they take – we will reach the goal I
set two years ago: by the end of the decade, America will once again
have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
See this is what happens when Republicans sweep local elections, grab governorships and state houses and legislatures, when they say spending cuts they mean attack on public sector workers and services, and in the final end union busting.
In his letter to the entire school department, republished in The Providence Journal, Brady wrote, "Since the full extent of the potential cuts to the school budget have yet to be determined, issuing a dismissal letter to all teachers was necessary to give the mayor, the School Board and the district maximum flexibility to consider every cost savings option."
Ah ha flexibility, that means instead of laying off the teachers, which would require rehiring based on union seniority rights, they have fired everyone giving themselves the option of rehiring whomever they like. In effect union busting.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Hundreds rallied on the steps of the State House in Providence Saturday as they stood behind their fellow protestors from Wisconsin.
The Rhode Island Teacher's Union marched to show support for their Wisconsin colleagues vying to keep their collective bargaining rights and to preserve the American dream.
"We're not gonna let them take away collective bargaining from us...it is time for every worker and every person in America to stand up and fight corporate greed," urged one protestor Saturday.
Mixed in among the crowds were Providence teachers who protested the recent firing of some 2,000 teachers in the district.
"Get down to city hall and tell Angel Taveras he has betrayed us...this is not just about a budget trying to bust our union," said Classical Teacher Anna Kuperman.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval has shown "contempt" for public school teachers by proposing to cut their pay by 12 percent to 20 percent, the state teachers union leader said Thursday.Lynn Warne, president of the 28,000-member Nevada State Education Association, said the annual starting pay of teachers -- now about $35,000 -- would drop to the $30,800 range in Clark County through the Republican governor's budget-cutting proposals.
"We feel an assault on education in this state," Warne told a joint Senate-Assembly budget committee hearing. "There is an assault on state workers as well."
Warne later explained that besides a 5 percent pay cut, teachers also would pay a 1.125 percent additional premium for retirement benefits and Sandoval also wants them to kick in 5.9 percent to help cover Public Employees Retirement System costs. That would bring every teacher's pay reduction to 12 percent.
Jeff Weiler, chief financial officer of the Clark County School District, said his district will have to lay off 2,500 teachers and 700 support personnel if Sandoval's plan wins approval.
The average class size would be increased by eight students and laid-off teachers would go on unemployment, he said.
The right wing pundits like to talk about 'class war' whenever someone mentions taxing the rich. This is what real class war looks like, union busting by Republicans. And it won't stop with the public sector unions.
In Wisconsin, the governor wants to gut collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Not to be outdone, the governor of Indiana is pushing two bills that would end bargaining not just for public employees but also for the private sector on construction projects (House Bills 1585 and 1216). In Ohio, Senate Bill 5 would end collective bargaining for state employees and take the heart out of bargaining for local government workers.
Governor Walker’s cuts aren’t just about Wisconsin. These legislative attempts to limit workers’ rights are a coordinated effort by the GOP and corporate CEOs trying to push cuts in our wages, abolish our benefits and outsource our jobs.
Public officials in several other states like Ohio, New Jersey, and Michigan are also set to consider eliminating collective bargaining (a worker’s ability to negotiate for wage increases, healthcare, job security, retirement plans, etc…) or drastically change employee pension and access to affordable health insurance.
In many states, public officials aren’t willing to negotiate with the unions that help protect the workers who keep states running—social and economic protections that help communities of color the most.
The Republican National Committee could not care less about the U.S. economy. A new RNC fundraising video (http://www.gop.com/obamasunionbosses/email/) demonstrates that it wants Americans to forget about our economic problems.Instead the RNC has conjured up a new boogeyman to scare Americans enough to forget the past and open up their wallets: Union leaders.
“The RNC is trying to fool the public into thinking that they are defending the middle class against unions, and that is both outrageous and offensive,” said IAFF General President Harold A. Schaitberger. “Who do they think created the middle class? If they are successful in their efforts to destroy unions, there will be no middle class in America.”
The video seeks to paint middle class Americans – the teachers, sanitation workers, fire fighters and police in Wisconsin -- desperately trying to defend their collective bargaining rights as “jack-booted thugs.”
Unfortunately the firings in Providence this weekend were not a one off, nor should they have been unexpected as they had been done as early as last year, with support not only of Republicans but President Obama as well.
4 March 2010
Speaking before an audience of business executives at the US Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Obama hailed the decision to fire the entire teaching and support staff at Central Falls High after they rejected demands to work extra hours without pay.
He defended such measures as critical to implementing the national strategy of Education Secretary Arne Duncan to deal with 5,000 of the nation’s “lowest performing” schools, overwhelmingly located in the most impoverished areas of the country. In order to qualify for federal funding, school districts have the option of closing a school outright, handing it over to a charter school or school management company, imposing a longer school day and other attacks on teachers, or firing the staff and rehiring only half back.
Pointing to the 74 teachers and 19 other school employees in Central Falls, Obama insisted that teachers had to be held “accountable.”
The Rhode Island firings are meant to serve as an object lesson and warning to any teachers who dare oppose the destruction of their working conditions and wages and the government’s efforts to undermine and privatize the schools.
A Tax Some Repubicans Like
Which brings us to Alberta's small carbon tax. It has one – $15 a tonne for companies that exceed certain emission limits, with the money going into a technology fund. The trouble is that $15 a tonne is too low today to generate a lot of money, and will certainly be far too low tomorrow to generate the income the government will need to finance this expensive policy option.However in Alberta the beneficiaries of this tax are the taxpayers; big oil.
And so with this model it should be no surprise that another capitalist who supports taxes is the CEO of Exxon; in this case the much hated Carbon Tax that Republicans and Harpocrites claim will kill jobs.
But a carbon tax appears to have little support in Ottawa. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have rejected the idea in the past, saying it will damage the economy.
Then there are Republicans who support carbon taxes because it undermines cap and trade, which by its sheer complications cannot actually function in the real market place.
Ironically its not Republicans but environmentalists and social justice advocates in California opposing it in favour of a carbon tax
But the environmental justice groups that brought the lawsuit against the Air Resources Board oppose the cap and trade program. These groups include the Communities for a Better Environment and the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment.
“Cap and trade will create toxic hotspots in low-income communities of color,” said Maya Golden-Krasner, a staff attorney for Communities for a Better Environment.
Those who support cap and trade say the revenue gained from the trading of emission rights will be used to forge programs for these poor populations, Pincetl said.
This argument does not satisfy the environmental justice community, though.
“This heavy reliance on cap and trade won’t get us where we need to be,” Golden-Krasner said.
The coalition seeks methods other than cap and trade to reduce carbon emissions.
“We are supportive of AB 32,” Golden-Krasner said. “We just want to see the Air Resources Board actually examine alternatives to cap and trade.”
These alternatives include a direct tax to carbon emissions.
It is also the reason Alberta was the first province to impose a carbon tax, to avoid cap and trade.
Why GOP Rep. Bob Inglis is looking for a new job.
Tue Aug. 3, 2010 2:00 AM PDTInglis voted against the cap-and-trade climate legislation, believing it would create a new tax, lead to a "hopelessly complicated" trading scheme for carbon, and harm American manufacturing by handing China and India a competitive edge on energy costs. Instead, he proposed a revenue-neutral tax swap: Payroll taxes would be reduced, and the amount of that reduction would be applied as a tax on carbon dioxide emissions—mainly hitting coal plants and natural gas facilities. (This tax would be removed from exported goods and imposed on imported products—thus neutralizing any competitive advantage for China, India, and other manufacturing nations.)
Here was a conservative market-based plan. Did it receive any interest from House GOP leaders? Inglis shakes his head: "It's the t-word." Tax. He adds, "It's so contrary to the rhetoric we've got out there, to what Beck, Limbaugh, and others are saying."
January 2009
The world's biggest oil company, Exxon Mobil, has softened its hardline position on climate change by throwing its weight behind a tax on carbon emissions.
In a significant shift in stance, Exxon's chief executive, Rex Tillerson, told an audience in Washington that he considered a tax to be a fairer route to curbing emissions than a cap-and-trade system of pollution allocations.
"As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax," said Tillerson. "But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."
support for carbon taxes has been taken up by a growing cadre on the far right, including Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, economist Arthur Laffer, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and yes, even climate wingnut Sen. James Inhofe (R-Gamma Quadrant). Hell, throw in a refunded gas tax and you get America's Worst Columnist© Charles Krauthammer too. Are we to believe that these folks understand the threat of climate chaos, want to reduce climate emissions the amount science indicates is prudent, and sincerely believe that a carbon tax is the best way to accomplish that goal?Is a carbon tax in America's future?
Posted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 5:40 PM ETTwo days after the election, a movement is afoot to achieve an audacious Democratic goal. The weird part is that the people behind it are Republicans.
In a Nov. 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Bush speechwriter David Frum suggested that President Bush propose a carbon tax. N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush White House, suggested the same thing in an Oct. 20 op-ed in the Journal, and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan talked it up in late September. Harvard's Martin Feldstein and Weekly Standard contributing editor Irwin Stelzer like the idea, too. Slate "Moneybox" columnist Dan Gross took note of this unexpected GOP trend in an Oct. 8 New York Times column ("Raise the Gasoline Tax? Funny, It Doesn't Sound Republican").
On a purely theoretical level, it's not at all inconsistent for a Republican to advocate a carbon tax. Conservatives prefer taxing transactions to taxing income because it's a way to avoid progressivity; rich and poor get taxed at the same rate. (In his op-ed, Frum makes no bones about wanting to use the carbon tax to "split the opposition" and to lower taxes on "work, savings and investment.")
The reason that that conservatives can support a carbon tax is because it is a Pigovian Tax, which is a classical liberal economic argument.
Pigou Club is described by its founder as “an elite group of economists and pundits with the good sense to have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes.”
Pigou Club was founded by Dr. Gregory Mankiw by stating his legendary manifesto in the Wall Street Journal. As time passed more and more economists were added to the list of people supporting the Pigou Club. They include people from all sides of political spectrum.
Tax and Spend Banker
This should not surprise anyone, tax cuts and spending cuts are what got California in the mess its in still thanks to Proposition 13 back in the Seventies.
JAMIE DIMON: States have a lot of wherewithal, when you talk about this huge deficit, the deficit in California is equal to one percent of the GDP in California, so if they raise taxes one percent, they could pay their deficit. And that's true for some of the other states and they have the wherewithal
The most significant portion of the act is the first paragraph, which limited the tax rate for real estate:
Section 1. (a) The maximum amount of any ad valorem tax on real property shall not exceed one percent (1%) of the full cash value of such property. The one percent (1%) tax to be collected by the counties and apportioned according to law to the districts within the counties.
And now it has become the clarion call of the American right, reduce government, which means reducing public services such as education, health care, etc.
Which when government can no longer provide them must then contract out the jobs, privatizing them, which leads to private profits at public expense.California public schools, which during the 1960s had been ranked nationally as among the best, have decreased to 48th in many surveys of student achievement.
And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era.
Proposition 13 was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis. The antitax crusader was a policy genius not unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both shared an affinity for designing deep structural change that, once embedded in the political system, is nearly impossible to alter without a massive change of heart by voters.
Jarvis created a similarly impregnable institution. When he rode the wave of anger over skyrocketing property-tax assessments to pass Proposition 13 in 1978, he included a two-thirds vote requirement for the passage of any new taxes in California — an insurmountable obstacle built on populist allergy to any kind of new levy. Beholden to a tax-averse electorate, the state's liberals and moderates have attempted to live with Proposition 13 while continuing to provide the state services Californians expect — freeways, higher education, prisons, assistance to needy families and, very important, essential funding to local government and school districts that vanished after the antitax measure passed.