What do you get if everything is framed in the context of self interest? You get a world framed by the individual. What is good for me is best. Adam smith required that any transaction must be motivated by self interest. You don’t engage in a trade either a goods or service unless you have two willing participants. Further to that, the system is self regulating. A cheat would soon lose his trade, while an honourable dealer would have more business than he could handle. This is the foundation of the free market. The willingness to engage another for the benefit of both. That is self interest. There is no implied moral quality to this transaction. What matters is that the seller and the buyer get what they want, the drug user and the drug supplier or the car salesman and the car buyer. These are both examples of self interests and a satisfactory transaction, what opprobrium we may level against the drug transaction is of a moral quality separate from the economic value. This point is necessary to understand because the self interest of the economic transaction has found its way into everyday speech.
The rallying cry of the conservative adopted by the liberals of late and still resisted in part by the socialist, “ tax cuts for everyone”. Taxes are the heart of the Liberal Democratic state. I refrain from the use of the word “welfare state” because of the pejorative nature that word has taken on in the last 30 years. The welfare state or the fare you well state is not about handing money to the lazy poor (or lazy rich, trust me it happens too and costs more) it is/was about removing obstacles that arise from economic disparity, social position or prejudice. Through effective taxation we transfer wealth from those who have it to those who have less. Yes I admit it money is taken from the Rich, I am not interested in pretending otherwise. It is not however primarily a money transaction, the poor do not line up for cash “office of money handouts”. Taxes turn into programs that help to mitigate permanent or temporary disadvantages.
Those people that have through talent, luck and effort ,found financial freedom pay more because they have more. It is not a penalty on the successful or as some characterise it “theft”. It is the bill you pay for living in a country, Canada, where it is possible to acquire such wealth and live without fear of any manner of calamity. Taxes help to keep Canada a great place to be rich and livable if your poor, thrown in is the opportunity to find success.
Tim Hudak the leader of the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario is a tax cutter. He wants to be Premier and he pursues this idea of over taxation. Now the liberal government has thrown money away on such things a E health, a good idea, but a simple failure in oversight resulted in 100’s of millions of dollars wasted. Your tax dollars. Mr. Hudak wants us to believe that because of some waste, government just can’t be trusted with your tax dollars. Rolled into this is the idea that we need more business not more government . The conservative are talking self interest here. Money is better in your pocket than in the governments coffers. Tax cuts quite honestly favour the wealthy over the poor. The wealthy pay more in tax than the poor do and will get more back. The wealthy benefit from far fewer services than the poor do, so once again they “lose”. This profit and loss equation never considers the benefits of living in a stable property rights respecting democracy the cost of which is priceless. You can be rich in a dictator ship of course, but I doubt anyone sleeps soundly.
In terms of interest, the conservative says a little money in your pocket is worth more to you than the services you get but never think of as coming out of your taxes. The truth is that we don’t pay too much in tax, we are however, unsure of what are taxes buy for us. We do need more oversight and better more effective taxation and spending. The tax well is not bottomless. I favour much greater scrutiny of government spending. Mr. Hudak has suggested a web site that would publish some types of government spending, citizens will be able to look at how the money is spent. This idea has many drawbacks. This is not a check on spending . The information is several months behind, what you get to see is how money is spent . How do citizens determine whether the money spent was worth it? I doubt there will be room for context. I am sure it will turn out like the “Sunshine Law” that published the names of public servants who made over 100 thousand dollars. This site has become a source of yearly outrage directed at public servants who make lots of money an exception is usually made for police and fireman who earn it. I think that creating an independent budget office answerable to Ontario legislature would be a better choice. I do not mean an auditor because that is after the fact. What I am thinking is an office that costs out program an over sees real-time spending. It would be a very powerful entity and would need to be non-partisan and be independent of government. I do not know how or even if it is possible to create such an office but it would be a solution to many problems.
So in terms of interests an individual must discern between immediate self gratification, the “money in your pocket now “ and longer term self interests stable funding for programs that benefit your future success. Think before you Vote, but by all means Vote.
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