Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending

[marmar]

from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:



Public services a bargain for Canadians: Study

April 15, 2009


TORONTO – The majority of Canadian households enjoy a higher quality of life because the public services their taxes fund come at a solid bargain, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending responds to incessant calls for tax cuts and concludes public services make a significant contribution to the majority of Canadians’ standard of living – worth at least 50% of their income.

“What passes for a tax cut debate in Canada is really only half a debate,” says economist Hugh Mackenzie, the study’s co-author and CCPA research associate.

“Our taxes pay for services that are extremely valuable to Canadians. The suggestion we often hear, that taxes are a burden, hides the reality that our taxes fund public services that make Canada’s standard of living among the very best.”

The study shows middle-income Canadian families enjoy public services worth about $41,000 – or 63% of their income. Even households earning $80,000-$90,000 a year enjoy public services benefits equivalent to about half of their income.

The study also shows 80% of Canadians would be better off if the federal government hadn’t cut the GST; 75% would be better off if their provincial governments invested in public services instead of broad-based income tax cuts; and 88% would be better off without federal cuts to capital gains taxes.

“Tax cuts are always made to sound like they’re free money to middle-income Canadians – they are anything but,” says Mackenzie. “We’re far better off with the public services our taxes fund than we are with tax cuts.”

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For more information please contact: Kerri-Anne Finn [phone] x 306. Visit www.policyalternatives.ca or www.growinggap.ca to download the report and calculate the value of your family’s public services.


http://www.policyalternatives.ca/news/2009/04/pressrelease2190/?pa=BB736455

[PDJane]

1. Most countries with higher taxation do have a better

standard of living. Canada is, however, subject to all the American propaganda.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Us Canuks have been getting a "stimulus" pak for quite some time.

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As a poor guy, and a renter, I get a percentage of what I pay in rent back at tax time - usually worth about one to two months rent - EVEN IF I HAD PAID NO INCOME TAX.

Also, most of us get a rebate on our sales tax - in my case, around 70 bucks 4 times a year, a tax rebate that automatically comes in my mail.

This past year, although on Social Assistance most of the time, I managed to work for about three months, paying over $1,000 in income tax.

I got every penny back!

And every three months till next tax time,

I'll be getting at least 70 bucks rebate for sales tax.

OH - off topic a wee bit,

I had to go to the hospital twice for illness this week,

my cost?

$0