Harris Conservatives Government Legacy

[Michael Hardner]

Harris saved the province. He did the right thing with testing teachers.  The lefty teachers want big salaries and no government to see if they are doing a good job. Most of the new education money always goes to salaries.

Don't forget to mention the doctors, cops and other civil servants in the same breath, though.

Yes, salaries account for something like 80% of government expenditure in any department.

[maplesyrup]

itte.....interesting link. Thanks. It has enlightened me about the term rent-seeking.

Table of Contents

Do you have this book: "Understanding Democracy"?

It looks quite thorough.

[Big Blue Machine]

We need to stop the huge percentage of government money going into salaries. Plus, we should test teachers and doctors.

[Big Blue Machine]

Opps forgot more, And keep salaries increases to 2-5%. We shouldn't raise minimum wage because its not a adult source of income. Minimum wage are for summer job teenagers. Welfare should be for people who really need it. I know this one person from volunteering. He is on welfare, and he always comes with clothes with holes in them. He is 42 and unemployed. He smokes like a chimney, and has a 3 year daughter. Last time I was working withing him, he was talking about getting a TV for his daughter, This guy was talking about getting a TV even though he doesn't have good clothes. He never finished high school ever. He was going to try the military but he failed the medicial exam. Should we pay our tax dollars for the welfare of these kind of people? Welfare should be for the disabled and the senior citzens. We should give food stamps also to welfare people.

[belfred]

Maple.. You do yourself a great disservice. Rather than search your arena's for topics that interest you, why not embrace a search of interest to the audience you serve?

After all, many positions that may be offered, often are subdued or withdrawn altogether because you leave so little room for reason.

Just a thought.

belfred.

[Big Blue Machine]

Most people agree that Mike Harris did a good job to Ontario. He won back to back elections. And during his 6 years, his popularity never fell below 35%

[daniel]

That 35% is the PC support base. It's the same 35% that voted PC in the October 2003 Ontario election and the same 35% in Ontario that voted for Stephen Harper's Reform/Canadian Alliance/neo Conservative party on June 28th. In both these cases neither Eves' party nor Harper's party had policy. Which brings me to my next point.

Elections are won on perception - strong leader vs perceived weak leader. No matter how draconian the strong leader may be the perception of leadership will garner the votes. Examples: Mulroney vs Turner; Harris vs McGuinty. In both these cases, Mulroney and Harris in their first term both implemented far reaching overly ambitious policies that were both described and hidden from the public at election time. By the time of their re-election campaigns the results of their efforts had not fully surfaced, the public perception is still strong but weakened due to the smarter segments of society revealing the true nature of the incumbent's policies. But the opposition parties are still perceived to be too weak to be given the reigns of power.

Re-elected and then guess what? The first term policies show their results in the second term. Reality sets in. Infrastrure has been destroyed. Schools don't have enough money to supply textbooks to students. Students graduate with $60K debts. The remaining of hospital staff are overworked. Quality inspection compromise public safety. And the leaders Mulroney and Harris suddenly jump ship leaving the next poor schlop to pick up the mess and try to garner an election survival.

That 35% support for PCs isn't the general public but die-hard rightwingers who will support anything that's not under the Liberal or NDP banner.

[Big Blue Machine]

It's the sutdents fault for being in debt, they work their butt off for money, before they get to university, when they have enough they go. They shouldn't be looking to the government for support.

[daniel]

Blame the victim. Typical.

[Big Blue Machine]

Victim, its not the government job to finance the students university education. Its the students responibility to make sure they have enough money.

[daniel]

Expand this philosophy to all sectors of society (except the corporations because they are the ones that create the jobs) and you have the Common Sense Revolution, and crumbling infrastructure - ie Harris' Conservative Government Legacy.

[Big Blue Machine]

If the NDP would be elected, they would destroy the economy with massive tax increases to coporations, that means that the coporations have to cut jobs to keep their profits up. If we tax their taxes, they have more money and so they can hire more people, thus creating jobs.

[Big Blue Machine]

I'm a Red Tory on some issues too, daniel.

[daniel]

If the NDP would be elected, they would destroy the economy with massive tax increases to coporations, that means that the coporations have to cut jobs to keep their profits up. If we tax their taxes, they have more money and so they can hire more people, thus creating jobs.

In actuality, the Ontario NDP did get elected, inherited a recession and exited leaving the economy with a boom (which Harris took credit for). And to reiterate, the highest growth of the G7s at the time.

So that answers your question.

[Michael Hardner]

If the NDP would be elected, they would destroy the economy with massive tax increases to coporations, that means that the coporations have to cut jobs to keep their profits up. If we tax their taxes, they have more money and so they can hire more people, thus creating jobs.

There's always a tipping point at which it's a net negative to society for corporations to exist.

Many jurisdictions give tax breaks or other financial incentives to corporations for locating there. Corporations pay taxes and employ people in return.

Where is that tipping point ? How do we determine what makes sense and what doesn't ?

[Big Blue Machine]

We should bribe car manufacters to put their factories in Canada, to get more jobs.

[Big Blue Machine]

Anyway the 407 toll highway, is a quich highway for rich people. Peopld don't need to take it.

[August1991]

Anyway the 407 toll highway, is a quich highway for rich people. Peopld don't need to take it.

Rich? Poor people pay for milk and bread. Why shouldn't they pay for putting their car on a busy road?

All four lane roads should be like the 407. We have the (Canadian) technology to do it. Let's. (Cities could eliminate property taxes and provinces eliminate income taxes with the revenues. Think!)

[takeanumber]

Because income taxes pay for more than just roads...the principle of user pay is based on the user paying just for the services that they're using...that's why they're a user.

I think the 407 was just a debacle.

The government, for a 1 time 3 billion dollar windfall, saddled the next 4 generations of Canadians with these high tolls.

Such a conservative (read: shortsighted) view of the world.

It really is quite a farce.

[Big Blue Machine]

There are other roads to use, not just the 407 toll.

[takeanumber]

Blue: I'm a free market liberal, and even I think it's a debacle.

There are other uses...but it's the cost to future taxpayers that's the really big issue.

Somebody who is born next year will have to be paying tolls on that road his entire life. They probably won't live to see the day when they use it 'for free'. (It's not really free, taxes, yadda yadda, yadda, at least most taxes stay in the country now that the debt is nearly entirely Canadian owned, etc, as opposed to the profits skimmed from the tolls...which leave the country.)

[August1991]

Somebody who is born next year will have to be paying tolls on that road his entire life. They probably won't live to see the day when they use it 'for free'.

They will be paying forever for this. Make no mistake. What is heavily taxed? Booze, smokes, gas. When governments figure out they can tax road use, it won't stop.

Before, cash tolls were tough to collect. With transponders of the sort the 407 use (you don't have to slow down to 5 km/h as in the US), these will be mandatory on all cars and detectors will be implanted on all entries to all major thoroughfares.

Because income taxes pay for more than just roads...the principle of user pay is based on the user paying just for the services that they're using...that's why they're a user.

TalkNumb, you should know that the issue of user-pay is not paying for the use of a resource. It's all about the accurate price to set. If there's a queue, the price is too low. Traffic congestion is a queue.

Governments will see it as a source of revenue. Municipalities in particular. When city politicians figure out that they can reduce property taxes, pensioners will love it. Pensioners vote but they don't drive on busy roads.

[Argus]

Toll-highway dispute goes international

The highway was sold to the consortium by the previous Conservative government on the eve of the 1999 provincial election.

This is another example of the fallacy of the advantages of privatizing. This sale by the Harris government is turning into a nightmare for the citizens of Ontario.

Well, as no one else has actually mentioned it, perhaps I will.

In point of fact Harris has absolutely nothing to do with this dispute. Dumbass McGuinty made countless desperate promises during his election campaign, most of which he never had any intention of keeping. The promise to control the tolls on what is essentially a privately built, funded and maintained road was one of them. Now since he's broken almost every other promise he made, and he thought this one would be cheap and easy to keep, he tried to do that.

But guess what? The consortium which build the road doesn't belong to the government. Nor does the road, for that matter (well, not for 95 more years). This is just another attempt by a sleazy politician to score political points at someone elses expense.

Now you can make a case that roads ought to be funded by the province if you like. Nothing stops us from building another road, if that is what we want, and making it free to anyone who chooses to use it. Personally, I don't have a problem with the user-pay system. It means I'm not out of pocket so that drivers in Toronto can get where they want a little faster.

[takeanumber]

TalkNumb, you should know that the issue of user-pay is not paying for the use of a resource. It's all about the accurate price to set. If there's a queue, the price is too low. Traffic congestion is a queue.

Arguable about the intentions...you say Tomayto, I say Tomaato.

The outcomes are similar.

I can go on forever about tolls and economics.

It's a mixed bag, at best.

But yeh, applying the free market isn't always a silver bullet you know.

Blind adherence to an ideology (as the Harris government demonstrates) leads to extreme policy and it leads to extreme outcomes.

The 407 and Waterton are good examples.

[idealisttotheend]

The 407 is just deficit spending by another name and in that manner it does represent Harris' legacy. The government sold the highway for 3.1 billion in 1999 and now Ontarians will have to pay the company in question tolls for the next 90 some years. As we see the government even loses the rights to set the tolls.

BTW the plan was to charge tolls for 30 years to pay the 1.5 billion for the highway, therefore simple mathematics tells us that to charge tolls for 100 years in exchange for borrowing just over 3 billion cost Ontarians 2 billion dollars over 100 years, (paying five billion dollars in total). That's 66 per cent total interest at the toll rates the government was going to charge which is obviously lower than what the company is charging even now. Compare 2 billion dollars to 5% per cent a year in interest (which the government can pay off early if it wants).

Plus there were calls for an inquiry after it was revealed that the government was offered a better deal that was less cash up front and rejected even that. Pure and unadultered stupidity by Harris, he just wanted the books to look they had more money than they did (and the Harris Tories had a record of selling government assets to pay for things -- ultimate short term thinking).

The moral: elect the conservatives and they'll sell you out for 100 years I guess. (Note the lack of smiley face, I'm dead serious).