In another story that will likely only come as a surprise to those that believe men can breastfeed babies, while two out of every five Canadians are on board with the idea of socialism, with that number being even higher amongst younger Canadians, surprisingly though, very few are willing to pay for the tax increases required to fund such a system, according to a recent Fraser Institute study.

The study is part of a new multimedia project by the Fraser Institute, and it’s titled “The Realities of Socialism,” and was conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK, the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia, and the Fund for American Studies in the United States.

The study found that among 1,006 Canadians surveyed, 46 percent of respondents aged 18-34 picked socialism when asked “What is the ideal economic system.” The number drops to 43 percent among respondents aged 35–54, and to 38 percent among those over 55. Proving once again that you only get smarter as you get older, but then again looking at the 38% though maybe just slightly less stupid!

As mentioned, the survey, accompanied by a report, was conducted in conjunction with think tanks in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia, and the results were similar in those countries. So, on the plus side other countries are full of free loading dummies as well.

“A whole segment of the population—not just in Canada but across the developed world—self-describes as socialist, but many of them have never lived in a world with genuine socialism nor the misery it imposed,” said Jason Clemens, the study’s co-author and executive vice-president of the Fraser Institute, in a Feb. 22 news release.

Misery Jason, really have you ever had to make do with just two bars on your Wi-Fi bro?

Wanting to ensure that respondent understood “socialism” in its actual form & definition, the study asked the respondents to define socialism, providing them with three alternative definitions.

Only 25 percent of Canadians polled defined socialism in the conventional sense—government owning and controlling businesses and industries. Sixty-five percent defined socialism as government providing more services, while 57 percent believe socialism is best defined as government providing a guaranteed minimum income.
In other words the majority of Canadians define “socialism” as “free shit bought and paid for by someone else” yeah who wouldn’t want to be on board for that, huh?

As for how the government, should finance the increased spending on social programs or provide a guaranteed minimum income, only 31 percent supported an all-encompassing increase in personal income taxes, while 16 percent supported raising the goods and services tax.

Out of four different tax proposals provided to respondents to finance a socialist system, most (72 percent) preferred slapping a new wealth tax on the top 1 percent of income earners, while 59 percent supported increasing personal income taxes on the top 10 percent of income earners.

Makes sense just “tax the rich!” after all they don’t ever pay their fair share right, isn’t that what we’re told all the time?

While I don’t have the numbers for Canadians, but I can tell you that in the US, that while the top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 their share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.

In fact down south, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent.

I can’t imagine it’s a whole lot different in Canada.

The authors went on to say “This is an important observation, because it’s likely that in answering this question, the vast majority of respondents assumed that the tax increase would not affect them.”

Why should they think otherwise, these clowns also believe that government somehow is a business and actually generates revenue by providing services, never for a moment realizing that it’s a black hole which is funded by tax payers!

However, Fraser Institute senior fellow and study co-author Steven Globerman noted that such tax increases wouldn’t “generate anywhere near enough revenue to pay for the higher levels of spending linked with socialism.”

Didn’t’ you know that’s what budget deficits are for Steve, just ask Trudeau?

“If Canadians want a larger government and substantially higher government spending, then all Canadians, and not just top income earners, will have to pay higher taxes to finance it,” he said in the release.

The findings on this aspect were similar for the United States, UK, and Australia.

“Critically, the results suggest that no age group in any of the surveyed countries indicated a general willingness to pay for the costs associated with their favoured definition(s) of socialism,” the authors wrote.
You mean sucking on the teat of you fellow taxpayers isn’t a human right, really?

The study noted that support for socialism as the ideal economic system declines as age increases. On the whole, 52 percent of Canadians agree that capitalism is the preferable economic system, compared to 24 percent who prefer socialism and living in their mom’s basement.

I’ve put a link to the study, as well as a link to the US tax info just in case your socialist friends don’t believe the facts, which is nothing new right!

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/realities-of-socialism
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/