Flat Tax...A Lefty View.

It's not a big revelation that lefties don't like a flat tax. They prefer to tax the "wealthy" to death and demonize the bad corporations who actually manage to have a profit. That's why Ignatieff wants to increase corporate taxes to 18%. It's easy to make corporations the demons and the downtrodden "poor" the victims. Maybe a flat tax for all is the answer!

Look what I found when I googled "flat tax Alberta" A supposedly "non-partisan" organization that states that the flat tax is costing Albertans over 5 billion.

EDMONTON— A new fact sheet released this morning by the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute says that the “flat tax,” introduced by Ralph Klein in 2001, is costing the province in excess of $5 billion a year. Given the projected deficit of $4.3 billion this year, simply returning to the progressive tax structure that existed in 1999 would be more than enough to move the province from a deficit budget to a surplus budget.

The fact sheet, entitled Giving Away the Golden Egg, also highlights the amount of room the province has to reform its current tax system—Alberta could collect an extra $10 billion to $18 billion per year in taxes and still be competitive with other Canadian provinces.

Hey, fact sheet, those extra taxes will come out of my income, so big NO. Make Quebec pay us back all the money we have sent them. We don't want to be competitive with other provinces, we want to be in the lead! Lower taxes, more development and income for Albertans!

More about Parkland Institute, from their own mouths to our ears:

The Parkland Institute is an Alberta research network situated within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. It operates within the established and distinctive tradition of Canadian political economy and is non-partisan.

The Faculty of Arts? Wow that impresses me to no end, I loved all my Arts courses at the U of A, they were guaranteed 9's for my grade point average. So, how "non-partisan" are they? Here's a hint....

Parkland Institute includes those who are involved in interdisciplinary and socially-engaged thinking. In the broader Alberta community, Parkland Institute works with religious organizations, professionals, trade unionists, the arts community, non-profit organizations, environmentalists, feminists, social movement activists, private sector individuals and other interested individuals.

Non-partisan my butt! Unions, feminists, social "movement" activists, environmentalists? Seriously? How about their "hero"?

1.1 History
Parkland began in 1996, with three years of seed funding from the Faculty of Arts. Its inaugural book, Shredding the Public Interest, by Kevin Taft, was co-published with the University of Alberta Press. It was a publishing success, selling about 13,000 copies in Alberta in the six weeks leading up to the March 1997 provincial election. For context, the standard measure used by Canadian booksellers for a Canadian best seller is 5,000 books sold in one year. Dave King, former Education Minister in Peter Lougheed’s Conservative government acknowledged that the book had an enormous impact on the election. The Economist stated that "Mr. Taft may be right...Maybe the whole 'Klein Revolution' as it is called, was unnecessary."i
Since then, Parkland Institute has published 32 reports, five more books and over 50 op-ed articles. The reports were written by 25 different authors. The opinion pieces were written mostly by the Director, the Research Director and the Executive Director. The work consistently meets a high standard with all reports and papers peer-reviewed before publication.

Kevin Taft? Now why does that name ring a bell? Oh, right....

Kevin Taft (born September 9, 1955) is a liberal politician in Alberta, Canada. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and leader of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, from 2004 to 2008. Taft was raised in Edmonton, Alberta.

Ohhhh, and they have published 32 "PEER" reviewed reports. We all know how well those "PEER" reviewed global warming papers are doing now, don't we?

Personally, I think a flat tax works better than the progressive tax we have. The "poor" pay less and the "rich" can't hide their money from taxation. You won't hear that from the lefties, because they are the masters of hiding their income from us everyday taxpayers, ex-PM Paul Martin and his ships come to mind.