Somewhere today, Mike Harris is smiling.
The vicious thug who believed it was the job of government to destroy what previous generations had built and to terrorize the weak and powerless has achieved his goal of permanently transforming Ontario into a mean-spirited, economic backwater.
When Harris cut taxes by 30%, economists (at least those who didn't butt-smooch for banks or right-wing "think" tanks) warned that he was destroying Ontario's "fiscal capacity". That was a fancy way of saying we wouldn't have enough money to pay our bills. Like me or you saying, "To hell with it; I'm cutting back to three days a week."
They were right. Harris skipped town on ballooning government debt and a huge deficit.
A newly-elected Dalton McGuinty caused an uproar when he tried to disguise the tax increase that was necessary to balance the books as a "health premium". But he learned his lesson: tax cuts are popular; tax increases are not.
So when he did the right thing fiscally by harmonizing the GST and PST, he also did the irresponsible, but popular, thing politically: he simultaneously cut personal and corporate income taxes. You hadn't noticed? That's because, just like Harris' cuts, the benefits of such cuts go mainly to the wealthy. That's the point.
And then the Great Recession hit Ontario, and the grateful corporations closed their factories and fired their workers, and Ontario was a few billions short -- $17 billion to be precise.
You didn't hear about that during last fall's election – from any of the parties. It's what's called "an inconvenient truth". But McGuinty had already appointed a former bank economist called Drummond to "study" the situation. He wasn't allowed to consider tax increases; he was to find "efficiencies". And buy time until after the election. And to soften us up. And to provide political cover.
In fact, as part of the softening up process, McGuinty himself criss-crossed the province telling us we would all have to make sacrifices. And boasting how his government had cut our taxes by $18 billion a year. Remember that $17 billion annual deficit? In other words, a deficit entirely of his making, Entirely unnecessary. Completely avoidable.
Restore taxes on the wealthy and corporations making record profits to the level they were just a few years ago. Do that, and the deficit disappears. No need to sacrifice children, the disabled, the poor, the elderly, the sick, and all those who are going to lose their livelihoods and homes with the budget proposed yesterday.
The Liberals will say they made "hard" choices; that they're being "tough". They always say that when they pick on the powerless and the unpopular, like public sector workers.
Want to show me how tough you are McGuinty? Raise taxes on the rich. But that really would be hard.
And that's why Mike Harris is smiling. Because he succeeded in changing us. He remade us in his own image: a province of selfish, small-minded bullies, unwilling to pay a few bucks a week – the price of a large double-double – to preserve the Ontario our parents bequeathed to us.
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