July 9, 2002
Kamloops Daily News



The Fraser Institute's annual publicity stunt, called tax
freedom day, has come and gone.  Instead of using a pie
chart or graph to show the percentage of taxes we pay, they
use the calendar.  Every year they eagerly tell us how much
we toil to pay the hated taxman.

The exercise generates the desired annoyance in taxpayers,
as illustrated in the headline in the Kamloops Daily News,
"Tax Freedom Day: Government took all we made."  The message
is that after June 27 the government no longer has its hand
in our pocket and now we can start spending our money on
what we choose.  That would be good if it we true. 

Taxes are just one of a number of expenditures over which we
have little choice.  After tax freedom day we sweat for 73
days to give money to the bank until we reach Mortgage
Freedom Day on September 8.  Then we hand over money to the
grocery stores for the next 40 days until Food Freedom Day
on October 18.

After Food Freedom Day, we give handouts to the poor
automotive industry and petroleum giants until
Transportation Freedom Day on December 5.  Finally, in the
dwindling days of December, we are free to spend the on
things we really want.

I calculated these dates using Statistic Canada and Fraser
Institute estimates on average family expenditures.  They
will vary according actual income and circumstances.

The Fraser Institute's tax freedom day is misleading for two
reasons.   First, even without taxes, we are not free to
spend money on what we like.   And the money that we give to
large corporations and to CEOs of dubious ethics is not
exactly a good cause.

On close examination, the value of benefits received through
taxation are remarkably good compared to similar private
providers.   Take health care, for example.  The U.S. spends
230 per cent more on private health care per person than
Canada, according to the Organization of Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD).

If the friends of Fraser Institute had their way, we could
expect pay twice as much for private coverage.   According
to their web site, we now spend on the average of $5600, or
17 per cent of total taxes, for health care.  Add another
$1400 that Statistics Canada says we spent beyond health
care.  Without tax paid public health care, the average
family could expect to pay $14,000 a year.  That makes taxes
look like  money well spent.

Of course, the Fraser Institute knows that public health
care is a good deal and that private health care would cost
more.  Their problem with public health care is that it is
too efficiently run to generate profits.  The Fraser
Institute's  concern is not that we are paying too little,
it is that we are not paying enough to create a profit for
business.

Education amounts to 15 per cent of our tax expenditure. 
Public education has always been the great equalizer of
successful societies around the world but the Fraser
Institute wants to fiddle with that too.  They have recently
published test scores of various B.C. schools that they
claim  indicates how well school are doing relative to
others.

The release of such scores is serves no educational
objective.  It only serves to sow seeds of discontent in the
public school system so that parents will use private
schools.   Once that happens, parents will then wonder why
they are paying for a public school system that they aren't
using.   The Fraser Institute's intention is to create
dissention and doubt in public education.

When you look at other tax expenditures; like police, roads,
environment, industrial development, and social assistance,
it's hard to see where cuts can be made without hurting
people and/or our  environment.   As the B.C. Liberals have
demonstrated, there are only two ways to reduce the already
lean public service; cut wages or cut services.   And no
public good is served by either.

Don't be fooled.  Tax savings are only incidental to the
goals of the Fraser Institute.  Their real motive is to
discredit public services in order to extract a profit for
business.  Should that happen, we would all be poorer one
way or another, either by paying more to receive those
services or by earning starvation wages to provide them. 

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