Toronto deficit is historical Miller not hysterical Ford

[Guest Peeves]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/07/12/18409201.html?cid=rssnewscanada

One thing for sure, it was previous administrations not the current one, and Ford & crew got elected to fix it.

Time to start laying blame where it belongs on Miller and his cronies.

"We've got a big $774 million-plus (budget) problem; there will be some impact on services and we have to then allocate the appropriate staffing resources to reflect the new reality of services, that will mean some impacts," he said.

Pennachetti said he'll have to deal with the possibility of layoffs after the buyouts.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said layoffs may be the only way to save money.

"We simply can't afford to continue the operation at the level we're doing," he said. "It might require drastic actions."

[Black Dog]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/07/12/18409201.html?cid=rssnewscanada

One thing for sure, it was previous administrations not the current one, and Ford & crew got elected to fix it.

Time to start laying blame where it belongs on Miller and his cronies.

Funny that your conclusion is not supported by your article. You can start by explaining what specific policies and initiatives enacted during the Miller regime are responsible (with financials).

Edited July 15, 2011 by Black Dog

[Oleg Bach]

The old big dogs on Bay Street refere to it as Millerism - From what I understand they are glad he is gone.

[punked]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/07/12/18409201.html?cid=rssnewscanada

One thing for sure, it was previous administrations not the current one, and Ford & crew got elected to fix it.

Time to start laying blame where it belongs on Miller and his cronies.

Yep it has nothing to do with the budget being balanced until Ford cut revenues right? I am sadden to see everyone in the world has to learn the hard way when you cut revenues you get less money. Seems I learned that in grade 2 but the right refuses to believe it instead they choose to believe in magic and that the people they elect somehow can fix everything with it.

[Boges]

Yep it has nothing to do with the budget being balanced until Ford cut revenues right? I am sadden to see everyone in the world has to learn the hard way when you cut revenues you get less money. Seems I learned that in grade 2 but the right refuses to believe it instead they choose to believe in magic and that the people they elect somehow can fix everything with it.

Other than cutting the car tax, what did he do to reduce revenue?

You telling me that the fortunes of the entire city is based solely on charging car owners $60 a year. Maybe a third of the deficit at the most, but not the whole freakin' thing.

[Black Dog]

Other than cutting the car tax, what did he do to reduce revenue?

He froze property taxes. With inflation, that's as good as a revenue cut.

You telling me that the fortunes of the entire city is based solely on charging car owners $60 a year. Maybe a third of the deficit at the most, but not the whole freakin' thing,

No, he's suggesting its stupid to cut revenue when you have a deficit.

[punked]

Other than cutting the car tax, what did he do to reduce revenue?

You telling me that the fortunes of the entire city is based solely on charging car owners $60 a year. Maybe a third of the deficit at the most, but not the whole freakin' thing.

He froze property assessments which is a revenue cut when you have a city where property assessments increase by 7-8% a year. I said a revenue problem not a tax one.

I am glade that you have shown once again though what I have been seeing over the last year. Conservatives either chose to ignore math or just don't understand it all together.

Bush turns a surplus into a deficit

Harper turns a surplus into a deficit

Ford turns a surplus into a deficit

Right wingers have become a cargo cut to tax cuts and don't understand how things work period end of story.

Edited July 15, 2011 by punked

[Boges]

I think a 0% Tax Freeze isn't a good idea also BTW.

Everyone else gets a tax increase. I hear Rob Ford admits he'll probably have to give people a 3% hike.

[WWWTT]

Here in Brampton and Mississauga conservative mayors(Susan Fennel,McCallion)are synonomous with tax increases!

This is why I find it freakin hallarious when the conservatives at the federal level say that Jack Layton is all about tax increases!

What kills me is that the region of Peel mayors get absolutely no flack or critisizm!

Instead they get re-elected with 60% vote without even having to wage a campaign.

I have seen my taxes go from 2,300$(2004) to 3,500$(2011),services cut,and not even a freakin whisper of why from the media.

In my opinion,if Fennel and McCallion are any indicators you guys in Toronto are in for a rough ride!

My best advise would be to attend home budget improvement courses and start getting use to less municipal services!

WWWTT

[Guest Peeves]

Yep it has nothing to do with the budget being balanced until Ford cut revenues right? I am sadden to see everyone in the world has to learn the hard way when you cut revenues you get less money. Seems I learned that in grade 2 but the right refuses to believe it instead they choose to believe in magic and that the people they elect somehow can fix everything with it.

The budget was far from balanced with around 500 million in deficit when Millers maulers were 'in'.

Any revenues Ford cut were promised in his election platform, as are the cuts he's proposing to reduce the deficit.

[Guest Peeves]

He froze property assessments which is a revenue cut when you have a city where property assessments increase by 7-8% a year. I said a revenue problem not a tax one.

I am glade that you have shown once again though what I have been seeing over the last year. Conservatives either chose to ignore math or just don't understand it all together.

Bush turns a surplus into a deficit

Harper turns a surplus into a deficit

Ford turns a surplus into a deficit

Right wingers have become a cargo cut to tax cuts and don't understand how things work period end of story.

Obama has increased the deficit more than Bush did.

[Black Dog]

The budget was far from balanced with around 500 million in deficit when Millers maulers were 'in'.

Still waiting for that budget breakdown showing how Miller is solely to blame for the current situation.

Any revenues Ford cut were promised in his election platform, as are the cuts he's proposing to reduce the deficit.

“I will assure you that services will not be cut . . . guaranteed.”-Rob Ford, October 8, 2010

[Shwa]

The budget was far from balanced with around 500 million in deficit when Millers maulers were 'in'.

Any revenues Ford cut were promised in his election platform, as are the cuts he's proposing to reduce the deficit.

Ford makes layoffs sound like a certainty

Ford made the remarks Friday morning in an interview on AM 640’s The John Oakley Morning Show.

“In business the first thing you look at is the labour. Your labour should be making up maximum 20 per cent, not what we’re at, 80 per cent, it’s just unheard of. So we’re going to have to take a serious look at union and non-union employees and looking at exactly what they’re doing and taking it from there . . . ,” Ford told Oakley.

....

A February staff report to Ford and other members of his executive committee states: “Altogether, salaries and benefits account for nearly 48 per cent of the city’s 2011 BC recommended gross operating budget.”

Here is more of the Mayor Ford Promise:

“We’ve saved over $70 million in the first six months so if we can find $70 million I’m sure we can save $700 million, that’s for sure,” Ford said.

Yep, going from $70 million to $700 million should be a snap. I mean, if saying it is that easy, surely doing it must be just as easy.

[Guest Peeves]

Funny that your conclusion is not supported by your article. You can start by explaining what specific policies and initiatives enacted during the Miller regime are responsible (with financials).

Unsustainable public service contracts,excessive hiring and umpteen programs the city carries that they shouldn't like child care the Liberal Party stopped funding and Miller continued.

Why do you think he never ran again, he would have been slaughtered. The voters had enough.

http://www.transportfutures.ca/news/your-day-financial-reckoning-nigh-toronto

.....and Ford wasn't elected with his team until late Oct. 2010 with an existing 400 $ million shortfall.

Yet this $400 million problem is nothing new. And the problem will only get worse unless the mayor and council are willing to "think big" and consider new ideas for restraining spending or raising revenues.

Throughout this past decade, Toronto has depended on a variety of non-sustainable sources of cash, including bailouts from the province and withdrawals from its own reserve accounts, to balance its budget. Put plainly, the city has been running a structural deficit since the start of the decade.

That structural deficit has grown rapidly, from a $72 million gap in 2002 to a $447 million rift last year.

So the $400 million hole for 2010 is hardly a new phenomenon. What has changed, this year, is the likelihood of pulling another rabbit out of the hat to plug it. Toronto has drawn down its reserves to a level much lower than neighbouring jurisdictions.

The problem is, at its root, a simple one. From 2000 through 2008, the city's operating expenditures increased at an annual average pace of 5.3 per cent. Yet its main source of revenue, property taxes, increased at 3.6 per cent per annum. It is this wedge between the growth rates of spending and revenue that gave rise to the structural deficit.

The city has made some attempts to address the sustainability of its finances, to little overall effect. Increases in user fees have provided some relief: for instance, the 9 per cent annual increases in water rates, in effect through 2012, ensure that water and sewer costs are covered entirely by a fee-for-service arrangement. Toronto's land transfer tax and vehicle-registration fees, introduced in 2008, are adding roughly $200 million per year to city coffers.

Yet despite these measures, the city's structural deficit has continued to grow. Simply put, Toronto's municipal government spends money faster than it collects it.

[punked]

Obama has increased the deficit more than Bush did.

Yet the first trillion of every Obama deficit can be attributed directly to Bush policies. We agree those Bush policies were dumb.

[punked]

Unsustainable public service contracts,excessive hiring and umpteen programs the city carries that they shouldn't like child care the Liberal Party stopped funding and Miller continued.

Why do you think he never ran again, he would have been slaughtered. The voters had enough.

Ford just gave the police an 11% raise. God Conservatives are willfully misinformed. You are the problem not Miller not Ford, you the misinformed passing on misinformation.

[Oleg Bach]

Who are the ones who spend and spend till there is no more real money? Certainly not poor people.

[Black Dog]

Unsustainable public service contracts,excessive hiring and umpteen programs the city carries that they shouldn't like child care the Liberal Party stopped funding and Miller continued.

Please provide the financial details supporting this. Thanks in adavance.

Also, how do you explain the findings of the KPMG audits that are showing very little in the way of gravy programs? If "unsustainable public service contracts" are the problem, how do you defend the TPS pay hike and the TTC essential service designation?

Why do you think he never ran again, he would have been slaughtered. The voters had enough.

Even if that were the case, that's not proof.

[Black Dog]

Fact of the matter is, the financial problems Toronto faces are too big and complex to be explained away by "David Miller spent too much." That's a simpleton's argument and doesn't address the structural issues of post amalgamation Toronto.

(Sidebar: isn't it interesting that Miller is also supposed to have been taxing Torontonians to death , despite property taxes only went up at slightly above the rate of inflation during his tenure? Hmmm.)

Edited July 15, 2011 by Black Dog

[Guest Peeves]

Fact of the matter is, the financial problems Toronto faces are too big and complex to be explained away by "David Miller spent too much." That's a simpleton's argument and doesn't address the structural issues of post amalgamation Toronto.

(Sidebar: isn't it interesting that Miller is also supposed to have been taxing Torontonians to death , despite property taxes only went up at slightly above the rate of inflation during his tenure? Hmmm.)

According to reports on radio shows I noted this ,"the last mayor hired people at the rate of 1,350 a year for the seven years he was in power, there is now a total 53,000 people on the city's payroll."

And if you read an earlier reference, the tax increases were too low for the money Miller was spending. Miller and crew were socialists and proved it. The garbage strike then raise, (under the table negotiations) was the straw.

As for being a simpleton's arguments, the deficit can't be explained away by denial or spin.

[Oleg Bach]

All socialist activity is funded by shrewd capitalists - Socialists have no money... Look at the communization of China - or the creation of old Soviet Russia - someone funded it and it was not the peasants.

[Guest Peeves]

Ford just gave the police an 11% raise. God Conservatives are willfully misinformed. You are the problem not Miller not Ford, you the misinformed passing on misinformation.

That's misleading. It was over 4 years and now there's talk of a major police layoff.

Toronto Police Are Getting A Raise!

May 5, 2011 3:14 pm

Toronto police officers will become the highest paid in the country with a deal that provides salary increases totalling 11.5 per cent over the next four years!

A tentative agreement reached earlier this week provides a 3.19 per cent increase this year, almost 3 per cent in each of the next two years, and 2 per cent in 2014. An initial pay hike of 2.75 per cent is retroactive to Jan. 1 and will be followed by another 0.44 per cent in October.

Details of the collective agreement were presented to members of the Toronto Police Association Wednesday night. The union, representing almost 5,600 officers and 2,100 civilian members, has recommended acceptance.

It is believed to be the first time the association has negotiated a four-year contract. The term was extended from the usual three years in order to get a better overall package, the union explained in a 28-page ratification booklet handed out at the meeting.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Peeves

[Oleg Bach]

Capitalists are in full agreement with wild socialist spending - They get to collect tons of interest on the loans that socialists take out in order to operate. It's a big circle f**k. The banks dream of socialist governments - they keep the rich rich and the poor thinking they are free and equal - what a joke.

[Black Dog]

According to reports on radio shows I noted this ,"the last mayor hired people at the rate of 1,350 a year for the seven years he was in power, there is now a total 53,000 people on the city's payroll."

So what? You still have to prove that that was excessive or unwarranted. By itself, it proves nothing.

And if you read an earlier reference, the tax increases were too low for the money Miller was spending. Miller and crew were socialists and proved it. The garbage strike then raise, (under the table negotiations) was the straw.

So you would have supported larger tax increases?

As for being a simpleton's arguments, the deficit can't be explained away by denial or spin.

I agree. You should probably stop doing that.

[punked]

According to reports on radio shows I noted this ,"the last mayor hired people at the rate of 1,350 a year for the seven years he was in power, there is now a total 53,000 people on the city's payroll."

And if you read an earlier reference, the tax increases were too low for the money Miller was spending. Miller and crew were socialists and proved it. The garbage strike then raise, (under the table negotiations) was the straw.

As for being a simpleton's arguments, the deficit can't be explained away by denial or spin.

According to reports Miller had a surplus. There end of story. He paid for the people he hired, Ford doesn't want to.