Assorted content to end your week.
- Stephen Mihm writes that among other positive outcomes, wealth taxes and other progressive tax options reliably produce a boost in life satisfaction for a large number of people (while having little impact on the positional interests of the ultra-rich against each other). And Derek Thompson is the latest to point out that the Republicans' giveaway to the wealthy - like other trickle-down plans - failed even at its core goal of getting people with concentrated wealth to invest it.
- Meanwhile, David Macdonald examines the distributional impact of the tax cut the Libs are treating as their top priority. And PressProgress notes that the choice to burn fiscal capacity on top-heavy tax baubles rather than social priorities is a pattern for the Libs.
- The AP reports on a large Keystone pipeline leak in North Dakota. And Nives Dolsak and Aseem Prakash warn that the promise of long-term employment from dirty fossil fuels is as illusory as the claim that they don't put the environment at unacceptable risk.
- Richard Zussman reports that rather than kicking the can down the road in setting emission reduction targets as the Libs and Cons have done so many times, British Columbia's NDP government is setting near-term targets to reach its 2030 goal.
- Finally, Dominic O'Sullivan offers some lessons on proportional representation based on New Zealand's experience - including as to how governance can be more stable when parties don't have an incentive to gamble on snap elections. Bob Rae has some ideas as to how a minority Parliament can produce positive results - though it doesn't seem that Justin Trudeau seems remotely interested in taking the hints. And Colin Walmsley and Peter Adamski point out that Canada's distorted electoral system only encourages regional grievances and divides, including the trumped-up warnings about western separatism.
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