Currently in Culture A modest proposal

James Toews

I should be happy with it. After all, it is a most creative and (for me) very painless form of taxation. In fact, it is a form of taxation which I can avoid with complete impunity. And it is no small tax. Millions and even billions are raised annually by it, and there is no word of complaint from those from whom these revenues are extracted.

I am referring to the revenues that governments raise from what they call "gaming"—charity bingos, casinos, lotteries, video slot machines and the list is growing.

So what is wrong with this picture? As a taxpayer who legally avoids this tax, why should I be concerned? After all, the money that is raised by this method allows worthy endeavours to be undertaken. School playgrounds are built, hockey teams are supplied with ice time, hospitals are refurbished, and on and on. Some of the money even finds its way to charities. Why object to such an apparently painless solution to the revenue problem?

During the 18th century, Ireland faced a social crisis. There were too many Irish being born for the land to support. In 1729, after careful study, Jonathan Swift wrote what he called A Modest Proposal to address this problem. Why not capitalize on the surplus of Irish, Swift asked, and come up with a "win, win" solution? The solution he proposed was to take the excess Irish babies, fatten them up and then sell them as luncheon meat to the Americans.

The ingenuity of the proposal was clear. Rather than make endless futile attempts at reducing the Irish birth rate, the naturally high fertility of this nation could be used to advantage. In fact, Irish families would be rewarded for having numerous children. It would be true that in the short run money would have to be invested in nutritious food for these infants, but it would be for a relatively short period of time. In the long run, far less food would be required to feed the Irish population.

The monetary advantages were also obvious. Families would be paid for their children, thus giving a much needed boost to the local economy. Those children which a family would choose to raise to adulthood, would have all the advantages that arise from economic prosperity.

Since this would be a new industry, it was also clear that numerous currently unemployed Irish would be employed. The economic spin-offs would be substantial.

The fact that these fattened Irish children would be sold to the Americans was the final stroke of brilliance in Swift's plan. Rather than money flowing out of Ireland to purchase food for the starving Irish, this scheme would see precious American dollars flowing into the economy, creating new prosperity.

Swift's Modest Proposal was, of course, a satire of the self-serving nature of government solutions to social problems. But modern Canadian governments' hunger for revenue from "gaming", and its rationalizations of its motives, would have made even Jonathan Swift blush.

It is hard to imagine a form of taxation that is more regressive. Since the beginning of time, governments have always taken funds from whoever had the most resources but the least ability to protect those resources. But who would have imagined a form of taxation which

• would tax the poorest members of our society at the highest rates,

• would distribute the funds to sports and health programs which benefit the wealthiest members of society,

• would feed those being taxed a steady diet of the promise that some day, if they continued to pour money into the government's coffers, they might be rewarded with unimaginable riches,

• to keep this hope alive, would regularly give out small rewards which the government knows it will soon win back, occasionally parading a "big winner", and

• to put a kind face on this taxation, would use some of the funds to pay for counselling for those who lives have been destroyed by their "gaming" taxation?

Only the infamous Opium Wars rival "gaming" taxation in their cynicism.

I pay nothing into "gaming" taxation. I should be glad that others are paying for programs that I and my children enjoy. But somehow I can't bring myself to be happy.

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