BC's Carbon Tax is Just Another Regressive Sales Tax

Ever wonder why Gordo Campbell and his 'Liberal Party' passed a Carbon Tax in BC when no other jurisdiction in North America has one? Because right-wing neo-con politicians love regressive taxation and the Campbell Liberals were able to spin the Carbon Tax as a green initiative to a hopeful green-y population of naive residents at exactly the right time, at exctly the time when it looked like others, especially Californians who BCer's wanna be like so much, were going to do it too for the same green-y reasons. The Californians in fact did do it until they had the next election cycle.

There's three basic types of taxes. Regressive taxes charge everybody, rich or poor, the same amount monetarily. They are called regressive, of course, because they proportionately hurt  the poorer person more. So all sales taxes, here in Canada or anywhere, hurt folks in reverse proportion to their income and wealth as does a Carbon Tax. A progressive tax is any tax that is collected in direct proportion to their income, like income tax, or in proportion to their accumulated wealth like property taxes or capital gains taxes. The third type are luxury taxes and sin taxes. Both of them are leveraged against things judged to be non-essential choices, like Hummers, BMWs, cigarettes and booze.

Rich folks love regressive taxation for all the obvious self-serving reasons. If all govt. revenue was collected from those most able to pay the corporate shareholder, the speculators, the robber barons and those born with a silver spoon in their mouths would have slightly less bling to amuse themselves with, might have to limit their holdings to one house in the Hampshires, might even have to settle for only one trip to the Rivera each season.

Poor folks live with regressive taxation because they don't have the extra funds it takes to adequately bribe enough politicians to get progressive taxes mandated. The rich are well educated in the cost-benefit analysis of paying off the every political party in every 'democracy' to keep their position secure. The poor spend their time in prayer and at the lottery ticket window.

If they made me, w. wallace mud, benevolent dictator taxation would be of two varieties only, progressive and luxury. Of course, the rich would moan, groan and buy copious advertising space trying to convince the poor of the unfairness of those dictates. Being a benevolent type though would mean using luxury taxes to their best advantage too. Things like cigarettes and booze carry lots in terms of externalized costs that everyone pays in health care and violence. Things like Hummers externalize their costs onto the coming generations in terms of lower air quality etc. Pity the rich bastards, someday w. wallace mud or some other unbribed type will come along and collect taxes fairly, will re-distribute wealth equitably and will stop capitalism from externalizing the true costs of its obscene destruction onto the unborn.