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So I grant only a complex morality sees it as fair to take 250-million tax dollars from long-ripped-off ordinary citizens and give them to the former rip-off artists, who aren’t even reformed rip-off artists but are still lobbying hard to keep competitors out. First we pay when they foist their monopoly on us and then we pay when a new technology comes along to finally free us from it.

The idea of paying people off when you take away their legislated privileges is one that should have greater currency

But in spite of its complex morality, the idea of paying people off when you take away their legislated privileges is one that should have greater currency. The privileged themselves won’t appreciate it. They’ll prefer to keep their privileges, as the taxi industry wants to. But it will help persuade the big-hearted, well-meaning majority of the ripped-off public that everyone is being treated fairly. Some Canadians are so nice they worry that if taxi drivers aren’t allowed to charge extortive prices any more, that would be a bad thing socially, given that most of the taxi drivers they meet — who aren’t even necessarily the permit owners — can’t possibly be earning much money. Next stop: Poultry and dairy farmers.

Speaking of low incomes, another good thing the Quebec budget does is raise the “basic personal amount” exempted from personal income tax by $346 and then index it from 2018 on. The idea behind the basic personal amount is that there’s some income nobody should be taxed on. We all have basic needs. Everybody has to buy toothpaste, warm themselves in winter and get their recommended calories per day, whatever that number is this week. On that basic amount of income nobody should be taxed. It’s a principle just about everybody should be able to agree to.