Who’s going to pay for it?

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Who’s going to pay for it?

That is a common refrain we hear from politicians, corporate leaders, bankers, right wing think tanks, and many in the media. We are told ad nauseum that we simply can’t afford the social programs of yesteryear and that austerity is the only solution. In fact in Canada we produce about 50% more wealth now than we did in the halcyon days of social programs in the 1970’s http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/governments-forgone-income the problem is all that additional wealth has been re-directed to where? The 1%. Also although our debt may seem astronomical at times, relative to the 1960’s and 1970’s it’s quite similar http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/03/21/graphic-50-years-of-canadian-debt So when the argument is bandied about that we simply can’t afford to have the kind of Ontario and Canada we’ve worked to build, that is simply not true. It’s a matter of priorities and letting the dastards know, we are on to them.