Saturn

A couple of corrections here: Accountability act ... right wing. Real accountability ... left wing. GST cut ... left wing.

I'd get rid of provincial governments altogether and leave everything to the feds. Having 11 governments instead of 1 is a huge waste IMO, and it creates constant friction between the feds and the provinces and between the provinces. It is unproductive and it gives politicians an excuse for failing to do their jobs - blame the other level of government. It is ridiculous that a doctor from Alberta would not be able to practice in Ontario and that the EU would have one securities commission and Canada would have 9.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work in practice, but for the Fed's muscling in on those areas, with some provincial acquiesence/request? No, the feds have the responsibility to ensure that Canadians across the country have a similar quality of life and similar access to services. That kind of forces them to "meddle" into what you prefer to think of as provincial responsibilities.

He doesn't need to be moderate. He just needs to hand out some tax cuts once in a while and it doesn't matter if he hands over the entire budget to his buddies and piles up the debt. Bush and Harris showed that you don't have to be a good financial manager or to be honest and accountable to stay in office - as long as you hand out some tax cuts.

Conservative ideology dictates that the consequences of your actions don't matter if they occur beyond your lifetime or in politics - beyond your term in office. After us, the deluge!

Get a grip, dude! What does socialism have to do with destroying your environment?

Could do that.... but then calculating tips is harder. There you go! So we get rid of the GST and raise income taxes.

That's the funny part - he's buying votes with promises he does not intend to keep. There are really only possibilities for him: 1) majority - he doesn't need to keep any promises, or 2) no majority - he's out the door and he doesn't need to keep any promises. At this point he can promise anything he wants.

That's awesome! But people would have to know how to divide by two ... Then increase it to 10%. You don't need to know how to divide by 2.

Small block? It's 2% of the population. How many voters does Harper need to get to majority territory?

He can propose it. He'll never deliver. It's good vote-buying to propose it and it doesn't cost a penny.

Actually, government debt is very relevant when 20 cents on every dollar you pay in taxes goes to interest on the debt. Government deficits are also very relevant because they can distort interest rates. Having said that, government spending is also very important - there has to be a balance between consumption and investment and both have to yield maximum benefit possible. What this government is doing though is not what's wise but what's popular, i.e. shoveling money out the money train and it's becoming ridiculous. And it's 2 months away from and election. At $3 billion a week, how many billion is going to spend up to the election? Agreed.

I was going to start a topic on this too. Mr. Harper has gone nuts! What the hell does he think he is doing? Ok, he thinks he is buying lots of votes and he is probably right. But this means that if he ends up with another minority he is going to pass a budget that's a whisker away from a deficit and could easily turn into one. Geez!

LOL! Dude, have another drink.

We are talking about personal chequing accounts, which require very little of the above. I don't get paper statements, nor do I ever see anyone at a branch regarding a chequing account (except to open or close an account - which isn't necessary for the banks either). I do all my transactions online and I rarely withdraw cash. Many personal chequing accounts require just a few ATMs, an internet connection and some computer systems. All that is easily covered by the interest on balances that banks don't pay.

That's how they came up with $500 million dollar profit from account fees and charges. Most of these costs are fixed costs and the banks would be paying them whether they have a million accounts or 2 million. Not paying interest on chequing accounts certainly covers the cost of maintaining those accounts.

That would cost $25 billion and so no, it doesn't make sense, so it won't happen.

Ok, they cut tax rates then. Cutting taxes generally means reducing tax rates, not reducing tax revenue. No party will decrease tax revenue.

Give me a break! Those accounts are a few dozen bytes in a computer. An account doesn't cost more than a buck a year to maintain. A $50 balance should cover that.

Of course it's an election gimmick. What did Flaherty offer the banks in return for lowering ATM fees? Nothing. Did he threaten them? No. Why the hell would they do it then? He just wants the public to know that he is taking ATM fees seriously (which he isn't) and that he is trying to do something about them (tell the media he is).

The government won't have time to finish the CWB off before the next election. Besides those families won't be peeved off until few years down the road. Right now they believe they can negotiate better prices for their product than the CWB can and they are more concerned about gay marriage.

The liberals cut taxes significantly every year for over 10 years. Seeing that you are so familiar with all things liberal and cutting taxes is one of them, why don't you believe they'd do it again?

How about a 5% income tax cut for incomes above $200,000? Still prefer the income tax cut?

This is much better than cutting the GST, IMO. There are a million ways to cut income and business taxes. Saying simply that he would cut them means nothing to me. How can anyone compare a cut in the GST to some general statement about cutting income and business taxes?

Quite the opposite - Harper is a backroom dealer, who believes that people are too stupid to know what's good for them and so need to be governed someone (him) who knows what's good for them even if it's against their will or even if he has to trick them into agreeing with him. While populism was one of the main principles of Reform, Harper liked it - he is not a people person at all.