Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Indexing Message-ID: <679@lsuc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 23:32:00 EDT Article-I.D.: lsuc.679 Posted: Fri Jun 28 23:32:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 00:20:38 EDT Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) Distribution: can Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 30 Summary: It was a distraction, and it worked, too. I don't believe the PCs never intended to repeal pension indexing. (Or at least, not unless the outcry was much less than they expected.) They put it in the budget speech as a distraction, a lightning rod if you will, so that the Opposition, the press, and the public would be too busy complaining about that (after all, if they didn't, it really would happen) ... too busy to complain about other budget measures. And in particular, so that people would not complain about the loss of 3 percentage points of INCOME TAX bracket indexing. As long as we continue to have inflation at 3% or over, which is probably for a long time, this change will imply an automatic increase in real tax rates ... every year. This is what we used to have before the tax system was reformed about 1972, and I for one am angry at seeing this condition return, even in a limited form. It does seem reasonable to me that taxes have to be raised at the moment... but an increase every year into the future is aleph-null increases too many. Mark Brader ("None of the above") P.S. This distraction-bluff tactic certainly is effective, if you don't use it too often. It worked very well for the Ontario government about 10 years ago when they raised the sales tax from 5% to 7%. There was hardly a protest. All they did was to announce in the same speech that there was also going to be a new "energy tax" of 7%, and then cancel that.