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By the debate on the economy later in the campaign, the language had gotten harder still. They weren’t just going to “ask” the rich to pay more: they were damn well going to raise their taxes. The Liberal plan to “grow the economy,” he said, “starts with actually raising taxes on the wealthiest one per cent.” Whereas “Mr. Mulcair is not going to raise taxes on the wealthiest Canadians. He’s chosen to not raise taxes on the wealthiest Canadians.” The middle class were still in there somewhere, but as a distinct after-thought.

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This was probably not accidental. One suspects the thought of sticking it to the rich tested rather better with the focus groups than a modest increase in their own paycheques. What a shock it will be to most of those voters to find that they are not going to see much of either.

The notion that what fairness demanded most of all was a tax cut for the middle class — as opposed to a tax cut for the lowest class — was always a bit of a stretch. Had the Liberals cut the 15 per cent bottom rate, of course, they could have done both, since the cut would benefit not only those in the bottom bracket but also those above it. But since the point of the exercise was to bribe the middle, they were not about to waste precious dollars on the poor.

But in fact, as others have pointed out, the 1.5 point cut in the 22 per cent “middle” tax bracket — that is, on taxable incomes between $44,700 and $89,400 — leaves out about two-thirds of all tax filers. At the same time, it also benefits those above it, including the top one per cent the Liberals are so anxious to be seen whacking. Indeed, lots of people earning well in excess of the $200,000 threshold at which the new 33 per cent tax rate kicks in will end up paying less tax under the Liberal plan, netting the tax increase against the tax cut.