pathetic

[dirtyandtrue]

It looks like Canada’s poor will be saddled with the financial burden for a couple of campaign promises. The Globe’s lead story centers around reports the Conservatives plan to axe something called the Canada Child Tax Benefit in order to pay for their $1,200 per year payment to parents. According to the Caledon Institute, a think-tank focusing on child-care issues, rolling back the child tax benefit means taking $249 out of the pockets of low-income families, whereas higher-income families never qualified for the benefit in the first place. After crunching some numbers, the Caledon report concludes that, under the proposed new child-care scheme, families making $200,000 annually will be able to keep more than $1,000 of their $1,200 allotment after taxes. In contrast, families making $30,000 will be able to keep less than $200 of their $1,200 stipend. To add insult to injury, Conservatives have said the GST could be partly financed by a 1 percent increase to the country’s lowest income tax rate. While it is unclear if the Tories will go ahead with such measures, they had better be aware of who will be paying for them if they do. Increasing the fiscal burden of lower income Canadians is not only shoddy economics, it’s a lousy way to make friends come election day.

from MediaScout, maisonneuve.org