Raise Taxes?

Expect this to become a point of contention, wasting many hours of TV and killing several trees. In reaction to a question from the Liberals yesterday, Psycho Steve said the following:

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. When we did our prebudget consultations, the Liberal Party wanted two more weeks of employment insurance. We gave five more weeks of employment insurance, plus all kinds of additional money for training, for people both on EI and not on EI. These are measures to help the unemployed in this recession.

What we are not going to do is, every two or three months, come up with another economic policy, another budget, until we need to raise taxes. Our deficits are affordable, but they will remain short-term. (emphasis mine).

The phrase "until we need to raise taxes" was pounced on by the Liberals (as you can imagine). It sure looks like, from the context, that Steve is suggesting that at some point he will raise taxes. I suspect he wasn't suggesting that, just the opposite, that his government will never get itself into a position of having to raise taxes, but that is not what he said. From such slips do governments kill themselves.

Recommend this Post