Alex Himelfarb > Quotes

“Tax is not a four-letter word; rather, it's the price we pay for the country we want.”
― Alex Himelfarb, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word: A Different Take on Taxes in Canada

“Austerity, especially when it cannot be offset by a significant lowering of interest rates, brings with it increases in unemployment -- particularly enduring unemployment -- suppression of wages for the majority, and deepening income inequality.”
― Alex Himelfarb, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word: A Different Take on Taxes in Canada

“No politician or party favours waste and inefficiency, and every government tries to reduce both--but tax cuts on the promise of ending the gravy train almost never find enough gravy. Of course efficiency matters, waste must be attacked, and of course it matters how both taxes and spending are organized, but despite the highly publicized incidents of misspending that seem to dominate the pages of our mainstream media and disproportionately shape our perceptions, the numbers about waste never add up, and the consequences of tax cuts on public goods and services are always worse than promised.”
― Alex Himelfarb, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word: A Different Take on Taxes in Canada

“[Fiscal prudence] means spending wisely, reducing waste, collecting sufficient taxes to pay for the public goods and services we want, keeping budgets in relative balance over time, and keeping debt coming down, at least during reasonably good times.”
― Alex Himelfarb, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word: A Different Take on Taxes in Canada