"Another golden moment is slipping away. I don’t mean the Leafs (not
only). I mean the Ontario election we might have had, the one about
taxes, with a debate on what it means to be a society....
"... What makes us human?
It’s our interconnectedness and interdependence. That conditions
everything, from crossing a street to turning on a tap. We are webs of
interconnection. Most good things cost money and taxes are how we
monetize many of those mutual needs. Among good things are
non-dehumanizing transit, decent schools, roads that don’t rise up to
devour your car — the pensions issue bites because it raises those
issues not just horizontally, in space, but vertically, through time,
between generations. Everyone stretches out their hands to embrace and
support everyone around them, often informally but sometimes via taxes
paid. I’m for fairness and I hate the free ride the rich routinely get,
but it’s more urgent to construct a social reality that serves most
people than be sticklers for it all balancing out. Their time will come,
eventually.
" ...One peculiar
implication of this debate is that the best way to make taxes more
acceptable is to raise them so that people see results, like better
transit and pensions. They have to be high enough to accomplish
something. That’s why high tax countries generally register fewer
complaints than low tax places like us or the U.S. It makes perfect
sense, since people who see fewer results rightly ask why they’re paying
taxes. That’s the Harper-Ford formula: cut taxes, services languish,
people don’t see the point and don’t wanna pay. Vote for me and I’ll cut
your pointless, useless taxes.
" ...Alas, it wasn’t to be. ... I grant, reluctantly, it sounds savvier, but I’ll sorely
miss the debate that didn’t happen and never may."
Kathleen Wynne backs down from the great tax debate: Salutin | Toronto Star
In my view Rick Salutin is saying some very important things about the relationship between the individual and the state.
