Why is it that no amount of economic evidence regarding the disastrous tax-and-spend policies advocated by government-as-saviour types - especially after a decade where such policies were enacted and threw us into a have-not status - never causes a re-think among the left in British Columbia

Never mind that British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer made their peace with markets, and now see the role of government as one that steers instead of one that "rows." In B.C., true believers instead hold to their old-style labour approach. It's revealing, for such beliefs then are primarily religious, not rational, as the believers show no inclination to learn from history. And they also ignore simple math.

For example, want to blame health care problems on a decrease to the health care budget Good luck. The last NDP budget in March 2001 planned for $9.3 billion in health care spending in fiscal year 2002, a figure immediately added to by the Liberals. In the new fiscal year, which will end next March 2003, spending will surpass $10.3 billion, a $1 billion increase.

One can blame hospital service cuts, line-ups, and emergency room screw-ups on just about anything, and some of the blame is legit: A top-down approach that would never be acceptable if this was about how to get food to people, funding squeezes given eleven percent pay raises for doctors and 23 percent raises for nurses and overpaid non-technical staff. But the faults in health care, now being blamed on an overall funding reduction, reveal a basic ignorance of the provincial balance sheet including how much new money has been pumped in.

Another major blind spot of the tax-and-spend crowd has been their constant focus on redistribution instead of wealth creation, which is their most egregious focus. For example, when it comes to federal taxation, pretend for a moment that all income over $60,000 was taxed away. That would put an extra $25.3 billion into federal coffers, assuming no change in behaviour (a faulty assumption but let's go with it.)
Give that $25.3 billion to all the taxfilers who earn less than $60,000, and each one would receive an annual cheque worth $1,300.

However, just a 3.5 percent increase in total incomes would have the same effect as the scenario just described. Still like redistribution for its own sake Or would you prefer government policy that aims to be a "rising tide that lifts all boats," as one economist so famously put it years ago.

But let's concentrate on the tax cuts in British Columbia for a moment. The projected deficit this fiscal year is $4.4 billion. After pushing through $2.2 billion in tax cuts (which would have been the full-year effect this year) the Liberals did precisely what the tax-and-spend advocates wanted them to do: they reversed course and raised taxes, by over $700 million; thus, the net tax cut was $1.5 billion.

Honesty in arithmetic would blame one-third of the projected $4.4 billion deficit this year on tax cuts, and two-thirds on overspending. Even if the deficit ends up at $3 billion, half of the deficit is still the result of overspending, not tax changes. And thus, changes to coverage, such as making people pay for more of their own chiropractic treatments for example, would have happened with or without the tax cuts.

And the same is true for any other example people care to bring up. (Question: why should government be the primary payer of some services now being reduced ) The math of it all - unaffordable spending would have driven the restructuring without or without tax reductions - is straightforward. Those who claim otherwise, are not.