Politicians and columnists keep calling on governments to cut taxes. They say tax cuts stimulate jobs and increase productivity.

The promise of lower taxes is popular. It puts money in your pocket. Who could be against that? Think again.

As employees of publicly-funded services, OPSEU members know the direct link between taxes and jobs. Taxes pay our wages. Taxes pay for the services we deliver and the services you receive.

The tax cut game hides another agenda: Tax cuts will force more cuts in public services and jobs.

How do we respond? The Canadian Labour Congress recently adopted guidelines for government budgets:

• Any budget surplus should be re-invested in Medicare, job creation, education and child development.

• The government should resist calls to make the rich richer through tax breaks for top earners. Corporations should be pay their fair share.

• Tax breaks must be targeted to low- and middle-income earners. And the best way to begin tax reform would be to raise the threshold at which workers start to pay tax.

Those are sound arguments. But as public service workers, we must also continue to show the connection between taxes and services. We have to stress the need for public services, as opposed to individual or private solutions.

Statistics Canada studies show private individuals are paying dramatically more for health care and post-secondary education as tax cuts have taken their bite out of services.

Bob Dale, an economist with our National Union, questions whether tax cuts really contribute to prosperity.

The 1999 Ontario budget gave tax cuts credit for Ontario’s economic growth. Dale says it is really lower interest rates and a booming U.S. market – which generated extra demand for cars, electronics, and other exports – that caused prosperity for Ontarians.

The average family paid $738 a year less in income tax. It was not a real gain, because provincial service cuts led to higher user fees and property taxes. These have cost the average family at least $766, a net loss of $28 from the family budget. These new costs wipe out the tax cuts for three-quarters of Ontario’s families.

Personal tax cuts can’t have great benefits, says Dale, particularly since tax cuts mainly benefit high-income earners. They spend it on offshore vacations, luxury goods, play the stock and bond markets, or hide it in foreign tax havens. This doesn’t stimulate Canada’s economy. Meanwhile, governments are forced to turn to user fees and gambling revenues to pay for essential programs.

An Infometrica study has shown that you create twice as many jobs by spending on health care and education as you do by cutting taxes – at one-sixth the cost per job. You create four times as many jobs by spending on child care initiatives as you do with tax cuts – at one-twelfth the cost per job.

As public employees, we must emphasize the need for strong, affordable, accessible, universal programs, including social assistance, the environment, and protection of natural resources.