We keep hearing that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. President Obama made that claim and has been asking Americans to consider whether that is fair.
The quick answer of course would be to say that of course it isn’t everyone should pay the same rate and we should scrap the mountain of deductions and loopholes that allow Buffett to pay lower taxes or a massive company like GE to pay no tax.
That misses a very important point in the debate though.
Buffett is paying a 15% tax rate because his income is derived from capital gains through selling shares. His secretary would be paid by Buffet’s firm Berkshire Hathaway and would likely be paying 25-28% income tax to the US federal government.
Mitch McConnell told David Gregory on Meet the Press that if Buffet is feeling bad, he can send in a cheque, or I suppose check. McConnell also raises some valid points, including Democrats voting down such a tax hike two years ago.
On Byline the other night we showed you the amazing scene of a man in Utah being rescued from a fiery crash by a group of citizens who happened to witness the crash. Now Brandon Wright has spoken out to thank the people that saved him.
We finished a federal election just a few short months ago and now many of the provinces are in full campaign mode.
How will it turn out? Well, that depends on where you live. However, regardless of outcome, we know that in the future we all must keep pressure on politicians to stick to their promise to live within our collective means. If we don’t, there could be dire consequences.
Last night in Edmonton, Ted Byfield pointed out that democracy may in fact be a fleeting fancy, pointing to history to back up his claim.
We may be at that point already. We may be beyond the tipping point. That has to be the worry in Europe where demands for entitlements, large and early pensions, free health care, school tuition and other social programs has outstripped the ability of economies to pay for the services demanded.
Deb Grey was the first MP Reform ever elected. In 1989, Grey won a by-election and brought to Ottawa the same message that she is delivering now to the Harper government.
Prime Minister Harper may want to listen to the woman he once worked for. Yes, Deb Grey’s assistant back in 1989 was Stephen Harper.
The prime minister has done much that is good since coming to power – including restoring honour to the military and re-equipping them, taking a run at fixing a broken immigration system, rewriting a citizenship guide to promote the idea that Canada is about more than recycling and taking a brave and principled stand on foreign policy.
These are all good and worthy of praise, but on fiscal issues, the kind of issues that often help get conservatives elected, the Harper government has not proven itself yet.
Yes, they have done much that is good. Yes, they were constrained by a minority government but the fact is, their spending has been a problem for several years and that problem pre-dates the recession.
While the federal scene is a mixed bag, I can only look upon the provincial conservative parties across the country and shake my head at how un-conservative they are. For the most part they are actually big government types: Liberals in blue shirts.
Some of you took my call yesterday for a real conservative alternative to mean there needs to be a new party in Canada.
No.
Political parties are just machines for winning elections.
To change Canada, or any country, you need to change the culture. That’s what Trudeau did and it stuck for a long time. He and his progressive predecessors took Canada from being a self-sufficient nation with a proud and strong military to being a European style welfare state that looked sideways at anything vaguely militaristic.
Starting a new party won’t change anything, talking to your friends, your family and neighbours will.
Putting forward the idea that limited government is a good thing, that intrusive government steals liberty. These are Canadian ideas as found in the debates that founded this country.
You need to convince those around you that social engineering will not save the world, that government is not the answer to every problem but often is the problem itself.
If these ideas are not widely discussed, or held by the population, politicians will not take them up and champion them in elections.
Preston Manning said that part of the next 25 years of his movement is about communicating ideas and principles.
Part of that job must fall to you as much as anyone else.
And that’s the Byline.
I’m not a huge fan of Sponge Bob, although he has convinced my kids that lettuce and tomato are good on a burger. Still the show has annoyed me more than most kids shows. But this video of Sponge Bob getting the beatings laid to him on Hollywood Boulevard is just bizarre.
I can’t figure out why the fight is happening or why both women have such bizarre hair.
The state of conservatism in Canada, that’s the topic of tonight’s Byline.
For the last several years, and in two federal elections, we have been told that the Harper government is most right wing government in Canadian history. We’ve been warned of cuts, we’ve been warned how heartless they are.
That’s been an ongoing narrative, not just from the opposition parties, but from most of the consensus media as well.
Harper will cut.
Harper is ideological.
Harper is ultra-conservative.
It simply isn’t true though.
Under pressure from the left and due to a minority government situation the Harper government has become the biggest spending government in Canadian history. They have cut little and expanded much.
That hasn’t stopped the claims that they are ideologically driven, far right yahoos out of step with Canadian values.
Right now the same is narrative is being played out in provincial elections across the country.
In Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak is being described by the Liberals at Tea Party Tim and there are plenty of reports that link him and the Tea Party.
Really?
Hudak has embraced McGuinty’s all-day kindergarten, his daycare in schools plan, his record levels of health spending and is promising to change very little. That might be why voters aren’t warming up to him.
In Prince Edward Island PC leader Olive Crane is promising a provincial drug program citing the fact that other provinces have one so PEI should as well. How conservative is it to promise that the government will run your drug plan?
In Newfoundland PC leader Kathy Dunderdale is promising to continue a tuition freeze for university, switches some student loans to grants and at the elementary school level expands government daycare across the province.
In Manitoba PC leader Hugh MacFadyen is offering to buy voters with their own money by offering a $100 monthly payment for each kid aged 6-12.
In Alberta the candidates to become PC leader and by default the premier support projects such as government funded light-rail, they back an extension of government control over private land and are generally so afraid of step out with bold conservative ideals that Preston Manning is worried.
Today, Manning the founder of the Reform Party and arguably one of the most influential politicians of the last few decades, is joining Ted Byfield and others to celebrate the 25 years since the rallying cry, The West Wants In was heard.
They are gathering with alumni of the defunct conservative minded magazine Alberta Report to celebrate the changes that have taken place over the last few decades.
And while their achievements are many perhaps it is time for a new slogan.
Conservatism wants in.
We need leaders across the country who are not afraid to say they believe in smaller, limited government. Leaders who are not afraid to tell special interest groups that although their plan sounds lovely and compassionate that it would be better handled by the private sector or by a charity.
We need leaders not afraid to stand for freedom, for property rights two things so closely tied that without property rights true freedom fades and government power rises up.
We need leaders who are willing to acknowledge that humanity is imperfect and no amount of government meddling, social programs or spending can end all of the inequality, injustice or evil in the world.
We need a real conservative alternative in Canada.
US President Barack Obama’s plan to create jobs in America looks like it also aims to shut down jobs here in Canada.
On the one hand, this shouldn’t bother us and it shouldn’t be surprising. Barack Obama is the president of the United States, not prime minister of Canada and his job is to do the best for his country.
But the way that Obama is going about this should bother every single Canadian – even all of you who still view Obama as the anointed one.
His American Jobs Act contains “Buy American” language that is very similar to his last stimulus program.
An article in the Wall Street Journal says that clauses calling for the exclusive purchase of American iron, steel and other manufactured goods for infrastructure projects could stop Canadian companies from bidding on as much as $105 billion worth of projects.
This flies in the face of our free trade agreement with the US, which should allow Canadian companies to bid on American contracts and American companies to bid on Canadian contracts.
Now, you can love free trade or hate it – but the fact is we have a deal and again the Americans are trying to get around it.
Obama tried this back in 2009 with his original stimulus plan the one that was twice as big as the one he’s proposing now and it still didn’t work.
I know some of you will challenge that and ask, “How do you know it didn’t woirk?”
Well, to put it simply to those people – America needs a second stimulus plan. If the first one worked, they wouldn’t need a second.
Canada may soon be dragged down into a second recession but unlike the US our unemployment rate improved. In the US unemployment has remained above 9%. Not good.
So now, Obama wants a second stimulus plan and like the first one he wants to skirt rules in the free trade deal that allow Canadian firms to bid on US government projects.
Section 4 of Obama’s American Jobs Act has the heading “Buy American — Use of American Iron, Steel and Manufactured Goods.” The section directs those overseeing any construction projects funded by the plan that funds will not flow “unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in the United States.”
One day Canadians might wake up to the fact that Democrats being elected in Washington is just not good for the job situation in this country.
Unlike the Liberals, the Democrats for the most part have not had a conversion moment when it comes to free trade.
From time to time, congressional Republicans have also caught protectionist fever but if there is an attempt to kill Canadian jobs, it is normally being pushed by a Democrat.
You remember the fight over softwood lumber, the most recent one that saw billions of dollars go from Canadian lumber companies into US pockets in duties and fees. That was due to the Byrd amendment, a piece of legislation brought about by the late senator, and one time Ku Klux Klan recruiter, Robert Byrd, a Democrat.
I bring this up because, time and again, Canadians support Democrats, they think that they’re all nice people who share Canadian values when really what they value is Canadian unemployment.
It’s time for Canada to wake up and realize who these people are and it’s time for the Canadian government to fight back against Obama’s job plan.
Seems most people of Ontario don`t like the Liberal affirmative action plan to give special treatment to immigrants searching for jobs. With well over half the people in the province saying they do not like this I wonder if the Liberals will now stop calling opponents of the idea racists or race baiters.
More than 60% of Ontario residents oppose Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty’s proposed tax credit for immigrants, according to a new poll.
Almost half of Ontarians — 47% — indicated they were unaware of the Liberal immigration tax credit, according to the online survey by Abacus Data.
However, 62% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat oppose the Liberal plan to give businesses a $10,000 tax credit for hiring a highly skilled newcomer to Ontario.
“The public, by and large, does not support it,” said Abacus CEO David Coletto.
“I was surprised by the amount of awareness — it was pretty much 50/50, considering the amount of attention it did receive in the early days of the campaign.”
Abacus conducted the survey using 1,002 randomly selected people in Ontario in September.
After Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot last January we heard call after call to tone down the rhetoric. Not just in the United States but in Canada as well. Giffords shooting was blamed on Sarah Palin, talk radio, the Tea Party and all kinds of other groups, mostly on the right, that had nothing to do with Jared Loughner.
One of the people that pledged to clean up his act, and complained that the shooting was the result of right wing rhetoric, despite any lack of proof, was Keith Olbermann.
Broadcasting on MSNBC back then Olbermann called for a change. Now, that`s gone. Having left MSNBC for Current TV – that`s Al Gore`s channel, the one that used to below to CBC. Well Olbermann called Republicans the biggest terrorist group attacking America between 2002 and 2009.
We keep hearing that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. President Obama made that claim and has been asking Americans to consider whether that is fair.