Meanwhile, we see that wealthy individuals and corporations receive tax cuts they do not need, and that they often use tax havens to escape such taxes as they do owe. Lowering taxes for the rich is regularly justified by the argument that they invest their savings to create employment, but we see little evidence to support this claim. We see further that our federal government makes billions available for controversial warfare, for expensive, inappropriate new weapon systems, and for unnecessary new prisons, while poverty and environmental damage continue to increase. A just tax system, wisely spent, could go a long way toward promoting the human and environmental welfare to which we are committed. But changes in our tax system are not enough to deal adequately with our needs, including our debt problems.
Crucial to our governmental debt problems is the fact that our governments at all levels borrow from private banks and from other private money-lenders, and pay interest on these debts.
Each year governments across Canada presently pay some $60 billion in interest on their debts, and as these debts increase, with interest rates probably rising, this enormous annual burden for taxpayers will increase. But this interest expense is not necessary.
Through our Bank of Canada, which has been publicly owned since 1938, the federal government has the power to borrow money in huge quantities essentially interest-free, and to make such funds available not only for its own use, but also for provincial and municipal expenditures. Such borrowing helped Canada to get out of the Great Depression, and to finance its participation in World War II. Continuance of this practice until 1974 played a key role in creating Canada’s post-war prosperity and in making possible its cherished social programs.
As federal governments, which control the Bank of Canada, increasingly catered to the private commercial banks, this practice greatly declined. Governments at all levels throughout Canada increasingly had to resort to borrowing from the private banks and other private money-lenders, including foreign sources. Moreover, the Bank of Canada in the late 1970s began raising interest rates as its primary tool for fighting inflation, driving the economy into recession in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s. These changes from the original mandate of the Bank of Canada, combined with tax reductions for the wealthy, rapidly increased the debts of governments at all levels, justifying major cuts to social programs. Following some recent federal government economic stimulus following the 2008 global financial meltdown, the austerity agenda is bringing ever more devastating cuts to our valued public services.
COMER: Call for Renaissance