Some More
Examples
These are all culled from our friends the
provincial conservatives of Ontario. As in the graph above, the idea is to
prove "tax cuts create jobs".
Compared
to September of 1995, more than 640,000 more people are working in Ontario.
This is about half of the new jobs created in Canada -- substantially greater
than Ontario’s share of Canada’s population.
It looks like we've
made a net gain in jobs. I wonder what the increase in population was in those
four years? What about the next line: "This is about half the new jobs
created in Canada, substantially greater than Ontario's share of Canada's
population." Well, Canada has around 25 million, 11 million of whom live
in Ontario. So that's 50% of the jobs, on 44% of the population. When you
consider that Ontario is Canada's most industrialized province, and that
Toronto is in Ontario, you see that this is not even close to a proof that the
tax cuts had any effect at all on unemployment.
Employment
has grown faster in Ontario than in the rest of Canada since 1995. On average,
other provinces experienced an 8.8 per cent increase in employment since 1995,
while Ontario has benefitted from a 12.3 per cent increase in employment.
"On average,
other provinces experienced an 8.8 per cent increase… while Ontario has
benefitted from a 12.3 per cent increase." Hmm… could it be that including
small provinces with really low 'per cent increases in employment' has made the
average for all the provinces lower, compared to Ontario's stellar average? I'd
like to see each province's 'average', and each province's 'income tax as
percent of basic federal tax', at least!
What is 'per cent
increase in employment' anyway? If we had 70% employment before, does that mean
82.3% now? Does that mean the employed as a percentage of the workforce, the
people who want to work, or the employed as a percentage of the whole
population? Of course it doesn't tell you. Have they got something to hide?
And maybe
employment grows faster in Ontario under any circumstances.
Ontario’s
Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 17.4 per cent between 1995 and 1999,
compared to 9.3 per cent for the rest of Canada.
Again, this doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with taxes. And anyway is GDP growth a good
thing? It seems like these folks think it is, but I'm not convinced.
On
average, Ontario’s Real GDP between 1995 and 1999 grew by an annual rate of 4.1
per cent -- almost two percentage points higher than the rest of Canada (2.3
per cent) over the same period.
Ditto.
Since
1995, Ontario’s housing starts have soared by 187 per cent -- far exceeding the
24.2 per cent increase in other provinces.
I like it when
things 'soar' by more than 100%. It's very exciting-- and quite meaningless.
Going from 50 to 200 is an increase of 300%. Is there a good reason for not
showing us the numbers?
Ontario’s
consumer spending is also leading the nation. Ontario’s retail sales have
increased 26.5 per cent since 1995, compared to a gain of 20.9 per cent in the
rest of Canada.
So Ontario's retail sales are about 5 percent higher than in the rest of
Canada, on average, over four years. Wow. Who's buying the stuff? Who's selling
it?
Notice the statistics that aren't here. Unemployment rates, average
incomes, income distributions, wealth, tuition, etc. etc.
Notice also that every one of the items on this bulleted list could be
explained by any number of things.