Do you remember reading a Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) article this summer which employed a rhino, ticks, and oxpecker birds to build an analogy? It subjectively concluded "…Saskatchewan has too many government employees [oxpeckers] and taxpayers [the rhino] are paying higher taxes [ticks] as a result." As an educator I appreciate the power of analogies but like all power, it can be abused.
A flaw in the CTF analogy is that the oxpeckers are also taxpayers. Let's say that our rhino weighs 2,000 pounds. The CTF says that 25% of our workers, 500 lbs. of rhino, are on the government payroll and the government is on target to reduce its rhino weight by 15% or 75 lbs. The CTF advises, in addition to excising 75 lbs., the government needs to tell school boards, universities, and health regions to not fill in "not-so-essential" positions when baby boomers retire. But this means even less tax money and more retirees who generally need more health care necessitating further cuts and putting more stress on our health care system.
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| What 75 lbs would you remove? |
A greater flaw in the analogy though is that the CTF wants us to see taxes as ticks—irritations that we can do without. However, taxes give us collectively a quality of life we could never afford individually; services like hospitals, schools, parks, and roads. Instead of risking severing an artery in our tax rhino, why don't we direct our governments to suture the malignant corporate tax gap estimated at $170 billion?
Submitted as a "Letter to the Editor" 29-Dec-2014
