Try again

Chrystal unfortunately misses a rather important point in Gordon Campbell's attempt to buy his way back into favour with B.C.'s anti-tax crowd:

Carole James has this to say:

I believe in a competitive tax environment but this is a ridiculous way to set tax policy... Fiscal irresponsibility and a government trying to buy back public support is the only thing I saw with this tax cut... It's unclear where the money will come from.

Might it not be from the HST that you and your party have been campaigning so fiercely against?

Needless to say, the answer is: no, it mightn't.

After all, the extra money being paid by consumers is balanced out by $1.9 billion in tax breaks for corporations in what's intended to be a revenue neutral shift in government income. And that's without even mentioning the shiny baubles offered alongside the HST to try to make it more palatable to B.C.'s voters in the first place.

Mind you, it's not hard to see why Campbell did what he did. After all, the move to keep slashing taxes even further should at least help him to break the anti-HST movement into its constituent parts and bring part of the Vander Zalm wing back into the Libs' fold - perhaps staving off the prospect of another right-wing party annihilating the Libs in 2013 or sooner.

But for the NDP and others whose concern all along has been Campbell's combination of fiscal mismanagement and desire to benefit the corporate sector at the expense of working-class British Columbians, the move only makes matters worse. And that should offer all the more reason to ensure that the Libs don't stay in power any longer than can be avoided.