NDP Platform favours middle class and working families over corporate tax cuts.

Today's news featured (at least for NDPers) stories detailing the announcement of the NDP Platform.

Prudent plan chooses the middle-class over corporate tax cuts
TORONTO – New Democrat Leader Jack Layton released his party’s platform today at a community centre in his east-end Toronto riding. The platform focused on helping middle-class and working families make ends meet.

“While Stephen Harper’s priority is a $50 billion corporate tax cut, my priority is investing in families and their children,“ said Layton.

The centerpiece of the platform is the New Democrat’s new Child Benefit, an initiative that unifies, simplifies and enhances existing programs such as the Child Tax Benefit and the Universal Child Care Benefit. . . (For more, go to NDP announcement).

What strikes me most and makes me most proud is that this will be balanced. Here's how: both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper are proposing to spend about $50 billion dollars. Stephen Harper is planning to spend it on corporate tax cuts. Jack Layton is proposing to spend it on things like the Child Benefit, hiring more doctors and nurses, a national children’s nutrition plan, investments in cancer research, and helping students with their tuition.

Harper says corporate tax cuts will stimulate investment and mean jobs; Layton says these tax cuts will benefit corporations already making lots of money (if they're not making money, they're paying little or no taxes anyway), and do little to stimulate the economy. Better to stimulate some green industries.

For the whole platform, see Platform (PDF Document)