Media Power in Politics

[Professor S]

I'm not sure I would agree that the cascading system encourages restaurant owners to "gouge" consumers, per se, but I definitely agree that hiding consumer taxes in a cascading system is not a good way to run things.

After reading about this, I have to say I don't think media bias is as much at play here as sticker shock. Unless I read it wrong, the HST is basically a tax directly to the consumer, and visible to the consumer, and the PST was hidden. In the end consumers were likely taxed the same or even less, but on face value it appears they are paying more because the consumer is directly exposed. Arguments to keep the HST would have a difficult time overcoming a reactionary public.