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Heritage Foundation president tells Davos: Future Trump admin must reject all WEF ideas

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Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos

From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts said that everyone in the next administration must ‘compile a list of everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum’ and object to ‘all of them, wholesale.’

The president of the conservative Heritage Foundation in said in his appearance at Davos that the next Republican administration needs to reject “everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum.”

Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank in the U.S., said during a panel discussion called “What to Expect from a Possible Republican Administration?” that “the kind of person who will come into the next conservative administration is going to be governed by one principle and that is destroying the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person.”

“And if I may, I will be candid and say that the agenda that every single member of the administration needs to have is to compile a list of everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum and object [to] all of them, wholesale.”

“Anyone not prepared to do that and take away this power of the unelected bureaucrats and give it back to the American people in unprepared to be part of the next conservative administration.”

Trump admin will ‘trust the science’ and reject push of gender ideology

Roberts said that the idea that the WEF is defending “liberal democracy” and the suggestion that Trump would be a “dictator” are both “laughable.”

“Whoever is the next conservative president is going to take on the power of the elites,” he declared.

“Political elites tell the average people on three or four or five issues, that the reality is X, when in fact reality is Y.”

Roberts went on to list five things as examples that President Trump will take on if he is elected:

“Take immigration: elites tell us that open borders and even illegal immigration are okay, the average person tells us in the United States that both rob them of the American way of life.”

“Thirdly, I guess the favorite at the World Economic Forum, is climate change. Elites tell us that we have this existential crisis with so-called ‘climate change,’ so much so that climate alarmism is probably the greatest cause for [the] mental health crisis in the world. The solutions, the average person knows, based on climate change are far worse and more harmful and cost more human lives, especially in Europe during the time that you need heating, than to the problems themselves.”

“The fourth: China. The number one adversary not just to the United States but to free people on planet Earth. Not only do we at Davos not say that, we give the Chinese Communist Party a platform. Count on President Trump ending that nonsense.”

“And fifth, another supernational organization, the World Health Organization, is discussing foisting gender ideology upon [the] Global South. These are practices that are under review if not being rejected, by countries in Northern Europe.”,

“The new president, especially if it is President Trump, will, as you like to say, ‘trust the science.’ He will understand the basic biological reality of manhood and womanhood.”

“I think President Trump, if in fact he wins a second term, is going to be inspired by the wise words of Javier Milei, who said that he was in power not to guide sheep but to awaken lions,” Roberts concluded.

Roberts: ‘I’ll probably never be invited back’ to the WEF

In a video published on his X account shortly before his appearance in Davos, Roberts said that “for too long, the self-appointed globalist elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland have lorded over you and me.”

“And you’ll never guess, the president of the Heritage Foundation was invited this year to go, and against my preference, I’m going, on your behalf, to read those people the riot act.”

“Their time of lording over us has come to an end, whether it’s COVID lockdowns, riding over there in their beautiful fancy private jets while lecturing us at the same time, sometimes while on the plane, that climate change is an existential threat.”

“I’m going to talk about all of it. I’ll probably never be invited back, but considering I never wanted to go in the first place, I look forward to it.”

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Business

Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces

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From the Fraser Institute

By Alex Whalen  and Tegan Hill

Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.

In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.

This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.

However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.

Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.

Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.

Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.

Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.

Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.

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Trudeau’s new tax package gets almost everything wrong

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From the Fraser Institute

By Ben Eisen and Jake Fuss

Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced several short-term initiatives related to tax policy. Most notably, the package includes a two-month GST holiday on certain items and a one-time $250 cheque that will be sent to all Canadians with incomes under $150,000.

Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s package is a grab bag of bad ideas that will not do anything to get Canada out of the long-term growth rut in which our economy is mired. There are too many to list all in one place, but here are four of the biggest problems with Prime Minister Trudeau’s tax plan.

  1. It reduces the wrong taxes. When it comes to economic growth, not all taxes are created equal. Some cause far more economic harm per dollar of government revenue raised than others. The government’s package creates a holiday on the GST for some items (only for two months) which is a mistake given that the GST is one of the least economically harmful components of the tax mix. Canada’s recent growth record is abysmal, and boosting growth should be a primary goal of any changes to tax policy. A GST cut of any duration fails this test relative to other tax cuts.
  2. Temporary tax holidays shift consumption in time, they don’t boost growth. The government’s GST reduction is actually a short-term tax holiday on certain items that will last two months. There are decades worth of economic research showing that when governments create short-term tax breaks, they may change the timing of consumption, but they won’t contribute to actual economic growth. Shifting consumption from the future to the present won’t help get Canada out of the economic doldrums. This is particularly true of the Trudeau tax holiday since purchases that Canadians may have made after the two-month holiday period will simply be shifted forward to take advantage of the absence of the GST. As noted above, there are better taxes to cut than the GST, but no matter what taxes we are talking about permanent reductions are vastly superior to temporary tax cuts like short-term holidays.
  3. One-time tax rebates don’t improve economic incentives. Perhaps the worst element of the Trudeau government’s announcement was a plan to send $250 cheques to all Canadians earning under $150,000. One-time tax rebates are a terrible way to provide tax relief. When you cut income tax rates, you improve incentives for people to work and invest because they get to keep a larger share of their earnings. This helps the economy grow. One-time rebates that you get regardless of the economic choices you make has no similar effect. This means that the rebate with its $4.7 billion price tag won’t help Canada’s poor growth performance.
  4. It borrows from the future to give to the present. The federal government is currently running a large deficit. This raises the question of who will have to pay the $4.7 billion bill for the one-time payments announced today. The answer is that the government will have to borrow the money and therefore future taxpayers will have to either pay it off or service the extra debt indefinitely. The money the Trudeau government will send out won’t come out of thin air, it’ll have to be borrowed with the burden falling on future taxpayers.

The Trudeau government got one thing conceptually right, which is that there are advantages to reducing the tax burden on Canadians. Unfortunately, the policy package it has put forward to provide tax relief gets everything wrong. It reduces the wrong taxes, shifts taxes temporally rather than cutting them, does nothing to improve economic incentives, and burdens future taxpayers. With the holiday season around the corner, this attempt at a gift to Canadian taxpayers is the economic equivalent of a lump of coal in the stocking.

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