Wasted tax dollars

[Esq]

Then legislate away their right to defecit finance stuff unless theres emergencies

This is crucial. Even the emergencies shouldn't count though. If you can't motivate the public in an emergency it likely isn't an emergency. Also there are no emergencies that would require huge capital inflows - that shouldn't be able to be obtained from donations.

The government is able to print funds if it needs petty cash. There is about a 500 million cushion in simple 1% inflaiton of new money supply and credit - on an anual basis. The govenrment could draw on in an 'emergency'.

Offering an insurance plan for emergencies is an even better way to finance for emergencies.

, or the unemployment rate climbs above 8% or 10%.

No I disagree I think that in order to employ people there should be an ecnomic incentive, not simply employing people to have them work. This is why I think any government initiative to employ people should come from a program that creates economic incentive. In this regard that program should pay for itself. Otherwise there is no economic incentive to the employment - it is a loss. Meaning it is counter productive.

Example

case 1:

people work and support themself and reap profit by private enterprise - win win.

people do not work and do not support themself - loss

people do not work and draw on public resources - loss loss

people work and draw on public resources win loss

people work through government program and support themselves win win.

As you can see only two scenarios are win win.

That would help, but the problem then becomes that spending would still be directed towards relatively short term initiatives that can help the government politically right away... and long term initiatives like keeping infrastructure servicable or build plants to provide for our energy needs 20 years from now would get neglected.

Why? If people in government can make long term programs why not people not in government, you are insulting the intelligence of the public, and purporting politicians to be more intelligent than the public? I don't think this is true.

I choose to see it that the public is an upper level of the government. People contact their representatives to put in their wish list. It is also quite stupid to plan for energy needs 20 years from now due to technology turnover. It actually slows things down to look more than about 15 years into the future - that is the time frame it takes new technologies to become commonplace. (and this timespan is reducing to about 10 years in some industries - and will likely continue to shorten annually by a few weeks)

You would also need to tighten the rules on flogging off public assets, because this provides the government with another revenue stream with no real limit on it.

The Social Party supports making public private corporations. This in effect turns crown corps into public controlled corporations, the government has a certain number of seats, the public has a certain number of board seats, and any private stock holders (that would be offered up to stakeholders) would have a certian number of seats.

This puts extra measures on protecting the public.

If governments cant defecit finance to pay for their pet projects, they are likely to just start flogging off public property for a fraction of what its worth.

A bad government would do that. So I tend to agree those protections need to be there.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Esq

[Shady]

Harper proposed ending all tax money given to political parties, which would have prevented the wasting of many more tax dollars. And the opposition threatened to form a government with the Bloc. This thread is more selective outrage.

[Smallc]

Harper proposed ending all tax money given to political parties, which would have prevented the wasting of many more tax dollars. And the opposition threatened to form a government with the Bloc. This thread is more selective outrage.

I fine with taking away public financing, as long as the donation caps are left in place, and the tax subsidies for donations are also removed. That would save even more money.

[GWiz]

Harper proposed ending all tax money given to political parties, which would have prevented the wasting of many more tax dollars. And the opposition threatened to form a government with the Bloc. This thread is more selective outrage.

Pulleeeze, anyone that watches TV knows what a load of manure that is... You got it exactly backwards... All the Conservative attack ads you're see are being paid for by Canadian tax dollars PLUS all the Government "feel good ads" on top of that... Bad, bad, bad, and I really, really hope it bites the Cons in the ass next election...

[GWiz]

No they didn't, that happened automatically. They simply didn't vote to get rid of it. That would have required unanimous consent in the House, and some Liberals (yes, Liberals) didn't want that.

Bull crap...

[GWiz]

I fine with taking away public financing, as long as the donation caps are left in place, and the tax subsidies for donations are also removed. That would save even more money.

Last time I checked it was the Cons in power so why hasn't it already been done? AND If there was any opposition by the other parties the Cons would have a FANTASTIC issue to take to the public... So tell us again why it's all still in place? Could it be that it's the CONS that like spewing their attack ad drival at Canadians expense?

[Shady]

Last time I checked it was the Cons in power so why hasn't it already been done?

They already tried. But the opposition tried to take down the government. That's when Harper went to the GG to prorogue parliament. If the Cons had a majority, it would've been done already. But thanks to the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc, we continue to give tens of millions of tax dollars to political parties. Which then gets turned into attack ads, etc. Me thinks your ire should be directed towards the people blocking this reform. Not at Harper.

Opposition lashes out at Harper vow to axe party funding

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s opponents say his plan to campaign on killing direct financing for political parties is irresponsible, arguing the current subsidies are good for democracy.

AP

[GWiz]

They already tried. But the opposition tried to take down the government. That's when Harper went to the GG to prorogue parliament. If the Cons had a majority, it would've been done already. But thanks to the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc, we continue to give tens of millions of tax dollars to political parties. Which then gets turned into attack ads, etc. Me thinks your ire should be directed towards the people blocking this reform. Not at Harper.

January 13, 2011

Nice try, in fact I think people should go read the article on the link you posted...

- Critics said the government’s plan was a mere ploy because the Tories, thanks to their strong fundraising system, are less reliant on the public subsidies. They said the Conservatives knew that, if the subsidies were ended, rivals such as the Liberals could be left bankrupt. The Tories shelved their idea to avoid being toppled.

Harper told Postmedia News he thinks there is a clear role for some public finance (for instance, people get tax receipts to encourage them to contribute to parties).

“But it has got to be tied to a party’s own efforts, or to the willingness of voters to actually contribute this money,” said Harper. “And that’s not the case here, so it remains our position that that particular subsidy should be repealed.”

But Ignatieff said the Liberals support the subsidies as a strong way to sustain democracy.

"We’ve got a political system that is by international standards cheap, democratic and open,” he said.

He said that if public subsidies are banned, “then little by little the big money comes back into politics.”

“Jean Chretien started to walk the big money out of politics. You cut public subsidy, you walk the big money back in. We think it’s the wrong way to go and if you want to know why it’s the wrong way to go, look south of the border." -

http://www.canada.com/news/Opposition+lashes+Harper+party+funding/4105447/story.html

Thanks for the link, some good stuff there...

[Saipan]

Last time I checked it was the Cons in power

As minority. If they could make decisions we wouldn't be wasting money on totally useless duck gun registration.

so why hasn't it already been done?

For the same reason Reform's proposal to get rid of gold plated pension parachutes for Ottawa politicians was defeated by Liberals and NDP's.