Road tolls: Highway to greater inequality
2017 2017-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2017...5 TORONTO—How are we going to pay for the better urban infrastructure so des perately needed? It shouldn’t be by resort ing to user fees that hit working people and the poor, disregarding ability to pay. Regressive taxation, like Toronto Mayor John Tory’s new plan for road tolls, is the highway to greater inequality. Wealth in Toronto, in Ontario, and beyond, has nev er been so humongous, and yet never so concentrated in such few hands. What is the alternative funding model? How can society fund public transporta tion, social housing, childcare, education, culture and recreation facilities, and meet health needs in Toronto, one of the richest cities in the world?
The alternative is clear. Raise taxes on big business, on the giant banks, on land developers, property speculators, nonprimary residence owners, on churches, mosques and temples (religious institu tions pay zero property taxes), on big com mercial advertisers, big landlords, and on all the big businesses that profit from the mass transportation of their workers and consumers to the workplaces, cash regis ters and credit card machines. Taxation of the many deep reservoirs of private wealth would end the sham debate between new road tolls versus a general property tax hike. Serious income obtained from those who can afford to pay would rapidly enable the city to end gridlock and abolish homelessness. It could reverse infrastructure break down, and in the process, create good jobs. Best of all, this can be done without fostering fights between downtown and suburban residents -- a favourite ploy of ‘opinion leaders.
— BARRY WEISLEDER’ ... Refugees (continued from page 12: “Protests challenge Trump’s refugee ban”) ties. Yes, the ban is reprehensible, but within the logic of the War on Terror, it is also logical.
Socialist Action says we must stand together against Trump’s ban, and against Trump’s registry, but we must also stand together against the illogical logic of the entire War on Terror.
We say no to marginalizing and criminalizing Muslims. Solidarity with Muslims and all oppressed people! Join us! n