The campaign the BC NDP did not fight

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Travis Fast
Relentlessly Progressive Political Economy

Not that it was totally inexplicable it is just that it was incredibly short-sighted. I am of course talking about the BC NDPs decision to join the populist attack on the HST. The fact is that it is almost impossible to get elected on a platform of raising taxes (corporate taxes to the side because they won’t do the fiscal heavy lifting).

The BC NDP could have staked out a position which changed the conversation from the HST to increasing equality and the fair sharing of the tax burden. That is, they could have built a campaign around a modest increase in corporate income taxes taking up some of the space left by the federal CIT cuts by the successive liberal and conservative governments while promising a full revamp of income transfer programs so that families with incomes below 50,000$ would be better off, families between 50,000-70,000 untouched with progressively higher rates from there.

That of course was the strategy not taken. So now the fiscal discourse if snookered. If the NDP were to get elected it is not clear how they are going to raise the money to remain in fiscal balance and feed their core constituencies.

Perhaps the Carbon tax is where they are looking. Good luck with that.