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If you were finance minister for your province,


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I would:

-cut taxes to everyone

-debt payment

-more wind turbines for power production

-cut welfare, encourage welfare people who are able to work to do so.

-money for health care and education

-impose a small fee for people that go to emergency when they shouldn't go there (like a bank service charge)

-maybe buy 25% or more of a Canadian oil company like Petro-Canada or Suncor.

-university tuiton fees can only raise 1% per year.

This budget might have a small deficit like at the most 1 billion dollars. What do you guys think?

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I think that if you have a money machine, sounds great... mostly. Unfortunately, cutting taxes to everyone, while initiating new programs like wind power and such, while increasing healthcare and education funding, while as nice as it sounds, is completely impossible. There's just not enough money.

Wind power should be more fully utilized, but you're not going to do it on that budget.

Also, what's the point of paying off the debt, while running a deficit??

What do you consider a real emergency? Who decides? How do control that?

Just a few thoughts.

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What do you consider a real emergency? Who decides? How do control that?

I agree completely with the ER user fee or penalty fee for those who come into the ER without a real emergency. I think an emergency consisted of any injury that could result in death if not treated. That includes severe illness to accidental injury. That excludes common colds, low fevers or minor cuts.

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Let me refine that budget.

-cut taxes to everyone

-debt payment

-cut welfare and introduce welfare to work for people that are able to work

-impose a big penalty fee for people who are in the ER who shouldn't be there

-tax lottery money by 25-33% (who wins the lottery?)

-allow university tuition fees to only raise 2% per year

-raise sales tax alittle on gas-guzzlers and cars above a certain weight

-lower sales tax on all hybird and small economy cars

-raise taxes alittle for cigarettes, beer, and wine

-cap teacher and doctor salaries at 55,000-60,000 dollars per year

-raise minumim wage

That is the revisied budget. Would you vote for it and what would you like to change if you could?

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-cut taxes to everyone

-debt payment

The question is by how much?

cut welfare and introduce welfare to work for people that are able to work

Are you of the opinion that people on welfare are living high on the hog or can survive at all any more cuts after Harris?

If you put people on welfare to work do you not replace paid jobs? If not, why not make them paying jobs and give them to people on welfare.

-tax lottery money by 25-33% (who wins the lottery?)

Lotteries are a form of voluntary tax to start with and the money generated can't be much at all in the scheme of the multi billion dollar Ontario budet.

-raise sales tax alittle on gas-guzzlers and cars above a certain weight

this is a decent idea along with lowering them for more carbon friendly vehicles.

-raise taxes alittle for cigarettes, beer, and wine

Sin taxes can only go so much higher as they are raised nearly every provincial and national election. Cigarettes are up over 100% in the last five years with alcohol close behind.

-cap teacher and doctor salaries at 55,000-60,000 dollars per year

If you capped doctor's salaries at 60K there would be a doctor's strike from the time you introduced such a cap until you recinded it. Doctors make more in the 150K-250K range in most parts of the country.

-raise minumim wage

Might be a good idea.

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as for the service fee for those who go to the ER with out an emergency(I assume that is the same as Outpatients), what about those who have no family Doctor?

And do you want to encourage people to wait until a possibly easily treated condition becomes a full-blown emergency which will likely cost the Health Care system more to fix than it may have if it were caught earlier?

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You can't cut or charge for emergency room visits until you fix the problem with the doctor shortage.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to hire more doctors and introduce things like more home care that actually reduce medical costs? Getting people more fit (says the guy who has coffee and cigarettes for breakfast most mornings) would also go a long way toward cutting costs.

I'm dead-set against work-fare. It is little better than slavery, does not address real social concerns, and doesn't really work. It's a short-term reaction to a long-term problem.

I'd prefer to see a higher minimum wage combined with free daycare and real training programs for those on social assistance. We should let people who own property and are then forced onto welfare to keep their property. I recently read about a case a while where a woman owned her own house, fully paid for, and had to sell it in order to get social assistance. I'd rather pay her $1000/year in taxes than her $500/month rent, thanks.

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If you raised fines for superfluously using the ER too much, people, especially poorer people, for whom the ER is often their only choice, would become afraid to even use the ER in case their injury was deemed a non-emergency once they got there. Not to mention, I could see that whole system requiring a huge bureaucracy...and honestly, we don't need more bureaucracy in this country.

As for capping teacher's and doctor's salaries...don't we already have enough problems with them, without a salary cap? Doctor shortages in nearly every part of the country, teacher's union strikes make the news several times yearly...do we want more of this? Rather than cap their salaries, tax them more if you want to get money back.

The thing about taxing is, do you want to have a purely capitalist system; every man for himself, and anyone who gets left behind....well, not our problem? Or do you want a more socialist system, where people are taxed according to their ability to pay but still maintain their economic standing? Or do you want an even more socialist system, where people are taxed until they have approximately the same salary?

IMO, the best thing to do is leave things MOSTLY the way they are... it's not perfect, but very much worse things could happen if we mess around too much.

If you really want to spend more, get your taxes from the extremely and medium rich. Those in the $100,000+ range. Cutting taxes for anyone and everyone only leads to deficits and debt. Until we pay off the debt, we shouldn't be running surpluses. All extra money should go there if it's not claimed by anything else. Once the debt is paid off, cut taxes, balance the budget, and make everyone a little happier.

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I'm no economist, and some of the things being mentioned, I think, are not in the Finance Minister's portfolio but my spending priorities would be something like:

SPENDING PRIORITIES:

1. Health care would be paramount

2. Education

3. Agriculture

4. Environment

5. Military

BUDGETARY PRIORITIES:

1. No tax increases

2. Surplus budget (no deficit)

3. Debt reduction

This being said, with more thought, I may change some of this.

Instead of tax cuts, I would rather see Tax incentives and grants to encourage participation in government priorities (Ie: energy savings, healthy lifestyles, etc.)

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I think the problem most of us have with trying to formulate our own budget, is that we don't have all year and a several-hundred strong staff of economists and accountants to work with the enormous numbers and implications of what we want to do.

Anyone can say what they want done, but it takes a lot of work to actually turn that into a workable plan for how to spend X number of dollars. And I think most of us don't have the time (or the desire) to do all that work. And maybe our Finance Dept. doesn't either, hence the problems <_<

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IMO, the best thing to do is leave things MOSTLY the way they are... it's not perfect, but very much worse things could happen if we mess around too much.

I agree. This is why I'm voting Martin this time, for the status quo. I think he's best equipped to implement managerial improvements in the system(s).

Harper is a bit like Harris in that he's a politician who has never been party to what is involved in managing a huge bureaucracy. Harris' tack was to basically ignore the bureaucrats.

That's not a bad option 95% of the time, but for the other 5% it has grave consequences.

Martin has been put on notice by the Canadian people that he can't count on a Liberal majority every time. If he wants to win power, and retain it, he will have to keep the promises he has made.

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anyone else for ideas about a budget?

sure,

1. Income taxe restructuring (From 10%/person) to:

0 - 50,000 0%

50,000-75,000 3.5%

75,000-125,000 6%

125,000+ 9%

2. PST

*increase to 12%

*maintain 7% for people 18 and under

3. Put a 5% sales tax on the sale of any new vehicle that gets less then 18 MPG.

5. Put a tax on the sale of homes, that would go into the construction of low cost housing units.

6. Increase funding to B.C Family bonus (studies show that since initiation welfare cases have dropped dramatically)

7. Increase Minimum wage to $8.25/hour

8. Create BCSBLP (B.C Small Buisness Loan Program)

For any small buisness employing atleast 5 people and have under 7 million revenue, provide loans for 80% of business operating costs for a total loan amount of $500,000 (5% interest rate)

9. Free daycare for single parents and parents whose combined income is under $48,000

10. Lower busniess taxes on health and wellness facilities (Pools, weight rooms etc...)

Well dunno how possible it is, and it certianly goes agianst status quo, but i thought i may aswell participate.

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Probably do just like the rest; line my own pockets and those of my friends. Just being sarcastic.

I think that would take a lot of research and confirming exactly how much money we have.

I wouldn't shy away from a user fee on doctor's visits beyond acceptable level without a serious condition that needs monitoring. Misuse opf emergency rooms should pay a fee; repeated misuse; a higher fee. I would spend money of the military but it would be more for defense and for disasters within the country. Small ships, helicopters, and more soldiers.

Daycare; only for those who need a hand up not a right for two working parents or even well paid single parents.

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- I would give healthcare a beaurocratic kick in the butt and knock all the dead wood out of the works. I would leave doctors and nurses alone, it is the head guys collecting the big wages that need going after

- Increase work incentives for new doctors and nurses so they will come our province, maybe a 7% reduction in their income tax and a further 3% to go to more isolated communities for 5 years.

- User fees for people who misuse emergency rooms.

- Tax incentives for companies that come up with viable alternative sources of energy.

- Promote a 2 tier public education system. One for kids who prefer to work with their hands and one for kids who wish to persue further education. The first group would be more emphasize on skilled labour, the second for accountant, medical etc. type skills.

- Bring back labour camps in prisons, yeah yeah, I am going to get it for this one but prison should be for punishment.

- Increase minimum wages to $9.00/hr. for anyone over 18, $7.50/hr. for anyone under 18.

- Better utilize taxes collected from gasoline sales to make better roads.

- Set up a police force to deal specifically with traffic violations, free up the RCMP to do criminal investigations.

- Increase enviromental violation fines.

- Tax incentives for people who buy more economic cars.

- If and when the debt of the province is paid off, then start to lower taxes.

- All politician raises would be panel reviewed and not to exceed the rate of inflation by 2%.

- During strong economic times, a slush fund is set up for a rainy day. This fund can not be touched unless there is an economic crisis.

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Interesting playfullfellow and Slavik44...

I like the idea of a slush emergency fund. Do you know how long that would take to pay off any debt of a province? Long time. How much you would raise taxes on gas-guzzlers? I think 10%. And we also shouuld lower sale tax on hybird and economy cars. What about tax incentives for transit users? I like the idea of incentives for new doctors. I agree with labour camps. We should put a small new tax on gas, like 5 cent a litre when prices go down. Don't we sort of have two-tier school system? Free daycare for people have earn together under 48,000 dollars? Maybe.

What about buying a part (25 or more %) of an oil company like Petro-Canada, Suncor, Gulf, Esso, etc etc. If prices went over 90 cents, the deal would be at least worth, a couple hundread million dollars.

And building more wind turbines for power production.

Gee, for a Conservative I seem pretty left.

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Maintaining surplus would be important.

use half of every surplus to pay down the debt.

once the debt is paid down use half of every surplus to purchass U.S. bonds because we know there are many of them and the U.S. will pay the intrest.

Lower taxes as intrest pays for more and more government services.

If possible eliminate most if not all taxes and pay the citizens excess which is not required to run the government.

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-I'd get the premier to open up all the stops on off shore oil and gas exploration

-Lower taxes on Oil and Gas companies

-with the aid of other government departments, set-up "add campaigns" stating how tough the environmental

regulations are towards the oil and gas industry in BC ;)

-Do everything the PC government in Alberta has done.

My idea of Utopia, Alberta's economy added to BC's natural beauty and resources.......

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I forgot to add:

-Push forward right to work laws

-bring back the BCPP, and reduce the role of the RCMP in community policing

-Perhaps even look at forming a commision of sorts made up of provincal/state governments, industry, and big buisness from British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, Alberta and Oregon. Then use this commision to help lobby the CDN/US governments to ease areas that affect Pacific North Westerners (ie. Trade/ Law Enforcement/ Enviroment/Lumber/Commercial Fishing)

-Pressure Federal government to "bring back" a regular force military base to the lower mainland

-Lobby federal government to allow Provincal government(s) control in depolying the Militia/reserves in times of need (ie. disaster/riots/SAR/assisting in policing)

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