The Canadian province of Ontario gained over 40,000 jobs in June, more than double the number of jobs created in the entire United States that month.
Something has gone terribly, horribly wrong here. To screw up so badly that a single Canadian province is now clocking the entire US in job creation, Washington would have to deliberately sabotage the country. I’m beginning to think that is exactly what they are doing.
Ontario has dramatically slashed taxes for corporations and individuals, which works every time it is tried. While the US languishes with what will soon be the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world at 35 percent, Canada has been slashing theirs dramatically. Companies can now do business there for a combined rate of 20% to 25%, and those rates are scheduled to continue to drop.
Of course, American companies don’t pay the full rate due to write offs and tax shelters, but having rates that high forces them to hide their money rather than investing it.
Since the new tax plan was introduced a year ago, 74,000 new jobs have been created in Ontario. Ontario’s real GDP increased by 2.8 per cent in 2010, and RBC‘s recent forecast predicts 2011 will bring the province’s highest growth rate since 2000. The unemployment rate has declined to 7.9 per cent.
As Jeff Taylor would remind us if he were writing this piece, the Charlotte region has shed over 30,000 jobs since the beginning of the recession.
The other problem? A friend of my fathers who runs a mid-size business recently told him that the biggest problem he now faces is the boatload of regulations that the Democrats passed before they lost control of the House. He says those are even more damaging than the recession and make hiring and expanding extremely difficult.
We have a long, long way to go in this country and, it often seems, no one in charge who is interested in helping us get there.
