ADAM CHAPNICK
  • Adam Chapnick
    • Contact
    • Biography
    • Employment
    • Education
    • Academic Honours and research grants
    • Professional Administrative Experience
    • Advisory/Editorial Boards
    • Scholarly Assessments
    • Academic Associations
    • Additional Relevant Information
    • Testimonials
  • Teaching & Learning
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Teaching Experience
    • Supervisions and Thesis Defence Committees >
      • Supervisions
      • Thesis Defence Committees
    • Refereed Conference Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Publications (Teaching & Learning)
    • Teaching Blogs >
      • Virtually Learning
      • The First Sabbatical
      • The Scholarly Edition
    • Other Teaching & Learning Activities
  • Research
    • Articles
    • Book Chapters
    • Books and Edited Collections >
      • Situating Canada in a Changing World: Constructing a Modern and Prosperous Future
      • Canada on the United Nations Security Council
      • The Harper Era in Canadian Foreign Policy
      • Manuel de rédaction à l’usage des militaires
      • John W. Holmes: An Introduction, Special Issue of International Journal
      • Academic Writing for Military Personnel​
      • Canada’s Voice: The Public Life of John Wendell Holmes
      • Canadas of the Mind
      • The Middle Power Project
      • Through Our Eyes: An Alumni History of the University of Toronto Schools, 1960-2000
    • Conference Presentations
    • Newspaper and Newsletter Commentaries
    • Publications in Conference Proceedings
    • Reports
    • Reviews
    • Teaching & Learning Publications
  • Public Speaking
    • Guest Lectures & Invited Speeches
    • Invited Workshops & Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Arrange a Lecture, Workshop, or Presentation
  • Adam Chapnick's Blog

Adam Chapnick's Blog

A contrary take on balanced budgets...

5/2/2022

0 Comments

 
Jack Mintz wrote an article for the Financial Post last week that left me frustrated.
 
It begins with a call to arms: “With revenues pouring into federal and provincial coffers, it’s time for Canadians to tell their governments they’ve had enough with high taxes.”
 
If governments – federal and provincial – collected the same 38.5% of GDP in taxes and non-tax revenues in 2022 as they did in 2015 (rather than the 41.2% they plan to collect this year), individual Canadians would pay $2000 less in taxes.
 
“To help beleaguered Canadians,” Mintz concludes, governments “should put tax relief on the front burner.”
 
Typically, it’s progressives who reject this sort of argument most vehemently.
 
Governments, however imperfect, fund the public goods that liberal-democratic societies need to flourish.
 
Moreover, a degree of wealth redistribution is necessary in societies that recognize that there are real differences between equality, equity, and justice.
 
I can sympathize with that view, but my primary concern with Mintz’s argument comes from a different place.
 
Ottawa alone ran deficits of over $300 billion in 2020-21 and nearly $150 billion this past year.
 
My family benefited directly from some of that money (we took, and continue to take, ‘free’ rapid tests; we got vaccinated ‘for free’; we ordered take-out from restaurants that used government subsidies to pay their workers; etc.), and I suspect that most readers’ families did, too.
 
I think that much of that spending was necessary given the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
 
But now that the economy is growing again, and unemployment is down, it seems to me it would be prudent to try to start paying back some of what we collectively borrowed.
 
That’s why I find Mintz’s calls for balanced budgets to enable new tax cuts so frustrating.
 
Balanced budgets don’t reduce the national debt, and tax cuts reduce revenue, which limits a government’s ability to pay back what it has borrowed.
 
(Sure, some tax cuts spur economic growth – and might therefore increase government revenue in the medium-to-long term - but the immediate result is less money for the state. Given the size of the national debt, we should be saving our tax cuts for when the economy is struggling.)
 
In sum, Mintz is right to identify a lack of fiscal discipline among today’s governments. But his solution – to replace them with others that promise to balance the budget and cut taxes – won’t solve the problem, and might even make it worse.
 
Surely, there is space in our political system for a party, ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive,’ that has the courage to ask us collectively – and not just the “ultra rich” – to pay more when times are relatively good so that future generations have a genuine opportunity to enjoy the same privileges of liberal democracy that we have.
 
A party that called on me to sacrifice so that my kids could have a better life would have my vote in a minute.
 
***
When it comes to economic issues, I always find Trevor Tombe’s work helpful.
 
***
To be notified of my next post, follow me on Twitter @achapnick. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter at https://buttondown.email/achapnick.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Adam Chapnick is a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC). The views expressed here are entirely his own.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019

    Categories

    All
    Canadian Foreign Policy
    Diplomacy
    Iran
    Trudeau

    RSS Feed

Blog 

Click Here to Read the latest From Adam Chapnick

Newsletter

Subscribe to Adam Chapnick's Newsletter

Contact

  • Adam Chapnick
    • Contact
    • Biography
    • Employment
    • Education
    • Academic Honours and research grants
    • Professional Administrative Experience
    • Advisory/Editorial Boards
    • Scholarly Assessments
    • Academic Associations
    • Additional Relevant Information
    • Testimonials
  • Teaching & Learning
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Teaching Experience
    • Supervisions and Thesis Defence Committees >
      • Supervisions
      • Thesis Defence Committees
    • Refereed Conference Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Publications (Teaching & Learning)
    • Teaching Blogs >
      • Virtually Learning
      • The First Sabbatical
      • The Scholarly Edition
    • Other Teaching & Learning Activities
  • Research
    • Articles
    • Book Chapters
    • Books and Edited Collections >
      • Situating Canada in a Changing World: Constructing a Modern and Prosperous Future
      • Canada on the United Nations Security Council
      • The Harper Era in Canadian Foreign Policy
      • Manuel de rédaction à l’usage des militaires
      • John W. Holmes: An Introduction, Special Issue of International Journal
      • Academic Writing for Military Personnel​
      • Canada’s Voice: The Public Life of John Wendell Holmes
      • Canadas of the Mind
      • The Middle Power Project
      • Through Our Eyes: An Alumni History of the University of Toronto Schools, 1960-2000
    • Conference Presentations
    • Newspaper and Newsletter Commentaries
    • Publications in Conference Proceedings
    • Reports
    • Reviews
    • Teaching & Learning Publications
  • Public Speaking
    • Guest Lectures & Invited Speeches
    • Invited Workshops & Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Arrange a Lecture, Workshop, or Presentation
  • Adam Chapnick's Blog