Harper's corporate tax cuts are one of the time-tested anti-individual cornerstones of Conservative financial policy.
Over the past number of decades, each time the Canadian government has gone from Liberal to Conservative and back to Liberal, one constant has been the swing in the proportion of income taxes collected from personal and corporate sources.
Each time the Conservatives have gotten in for any number of years, they have reduced the corporate share of income tax revenues drastically. Whenever the Liberals have attained power, they have reverted to a higher corporate tax scenario.
The Conservative refrain is always about the famous "trickle down" effect. Yeah, that's the effect where wealth takes so long to trickle down that the gap between rich and poor never stops getting deeper and wider.
True to form, not long after Harper got elected, he announced massive corporate tax cuts graduated over a few years.
At this point in time, with the country running a huge annual deficit, the effects of corporate tax cuts are as follows:
* the annual deficit is increased, putting more debt on future generations
* immediate benefits go out to corporate shareholders; the richer you are - the more you benefit
* a larger portion of the tax burden is shouldered by everyday workers and the middle class
As for the trickle down effect: You need only look to our neighbours to the south to see where Bush-enomics got them.
Or, just ask the 1000 workers at the Electrolux plant in l"Assomption - soon to be former employees. Their jobs shipped out of the country anyway, in spite of Harper's already generous corporate handouts. Electrolux got even more from Memphis.