$8,000,000,000

[caesar]

The "surplus" is NOT really a surplus. It is what we have to pay off some of our large deficit. EI should be reduced since it is now only covers when one gets laid off; mainly seasonal workers (many who are paid well due to the seasonal nature of their work) We no longer can quit a jobs despite for any reason. Employers take advantage of this and refuse raises. Some types of employment make it difficult to look for other employment while still employed. This gives the government a windfall and the working public subsidizes the seasonal workers.

[Guest eureka]

What amount of our money goes to government seems to be open to question. Are corporate taxes and user fees included? In the USA, for one example, corporate taxes are higher in many states than in most Canadian jurisdictions. User fees are more common in the US, too.

Is it not better to know what we do pay for our services?

Canada is, as I have repeated many times, not considered to be a high tax country when compared to other advanced nations. The opposite is true and Canada is one of the lower taxed in OECD. Our military expenditures may not be up to what we would like but they are not in the lower end when countries of comparative size are looked at. The US spends 50%, almost, of its federal budget on the military, but the US is a militaristic state and its federal budget does not include the many indirect methods of raising money or the private expenditures on what are public concerns in more civilized nations.

EI is one example of the fault in Canada. Rather than giving the money back, we should be directing it to those in need.

[playfullfellow]

I know there are other countries that pay more in taxes than we do but those countries also offer more to its population. Right now I work for half the year to pay taxes. I think that includes most service fees too. EI should be treated like regular insurance, if you dont use it, you should pay less. If you are a regular user, seasonal, then you pay the full level. Thats only fair.

[maplesyrup]

pff....I disagree. We need to pay for everything based on our equity or income. Otherwise when some rich dude cuts down a tree for his view and pays a fine of $500. that is like missing one meal in a restaurant for some people whereas for other people that could be a month's groceries for their entire family.

I just don't know how we ever got into this make the poor pay for everything mentality, do you?

[playfullfellow]

MS, then why call it insurance? Why shouldn't I be rewarded for never having used the system in over 19 years? And it sure isn't because I am rich that I have never had to use EI. It is because I have always moved to where the work is that I have never had to use it.

[maplesyrup]

pff.....and more power to you for having the gumption to get up and go to where the work is, and you should benefit accordingly. Not everyone has that drive though.

When one has car insurance and has had a good driving record there are discounts awarded to such drivers at least via governemnt-run ICBC in BC.

Perhaps UIC should find a formula to support people who don't need to use the UIC fund as much as others do. There should always be some kind of a financial incentive to not use it.

[Guest eureka]

The principle behind insurance is that every one pys the same. Discounts and so on are a distortion of the principle - a necessary one.

I don't think that should apply to EI. There, the risk factors are not calculable.

[maplesyrup]

I think the overriding factor that is causing friction about UIC is the huge surplus has been built up. This surplus somehow should be given to the employees in some way, shape, or form, either in reduced premiums or a one shot payout to Canadian workers.

[playfullfellow]

I agree with you here MS, there should be some kind of reward to people who have never or rarely used the EI system.

I disagree eureka, why should I pay the same as someone who goes on EI every winter? Why should I subsidise their income every single winter? It's a different story when the country is facing financially difficult times as a whole, then we can all be in trouble. Of course it is difficult to assess risk factors but I think it would be a little easier than automobile, especially during financially stable times.

[Guest eureka]

If the surplus in EI is given back, would it not have to be collected in other ways: ways that some, the right wing, particularly, might not find palatable?

[Guest eureka]

If the surplus in EI is given back, would it not have to be collected in other ways: ways that some, the right wing, particularly, might not find palatable?

[Newfie Canadian]

With the price of oil these days, perhaps a home heating rebate would be nice.

[brianw]

The surplus does not result from overtaxation.

Of course not. The money comes from thin air not from the sweat of workers.

When will Canadians learn to think for themselves

Good question. When will Canadians wake up and realize that crimes are being committed against them. If you refuse to pay the government to be allowed to work then you are not allowed to work. So the government decides who is allowed to work based on how much of a cut someome is willing to give them. This violates your right to work which is why the original income tax act stated it was voluntary).

The surplus results from underfunding of social programs. It comes on the backs of the disadvantaged in society.

People are kept down because they are over taxed which creates the social problem in the first place. You are asking people to believe that the same people how caused the problem will fix it by taking more money from people which places more people into the disadvantaged catagory which means more money is needed to fix the problem which places more people in the .... and it goes on and on ....

The interest is paid mostly to ourselves as the link someone posted will explain if it can be looked at through eyes that have had the blinkers removed.

The interest is paid tto those who can afford such investments in the first place. Which leaves "mostly ourselves" put of it.

As I posted earlier, we may get what we are asking for if we allow this tax fixation to continue. Inflation, recession and social unrest are likely consequences as well as the further defragmentation of the country when the federal government loses its ability to make the expenditures that hold the country together.

how does boondoggle after boondoggle demonstrate that the government uses it's expenditures on holding the country together? It is the animosity created when people have their labour stolen to pay for such boondoggles that is causing the problem. We are constantly being told to tighten our belts while the government gets fatter and fatter (government = get rich quick scheme). There isn't one thing left that does not have some sort of tax associated with it. People even get thorwn out of their own homes if there circumstances change and they can't afford to pay the shelter tax required (which creates further need to help the disadvantaged after they are put on the street by the government in the first place).

[maplesyrup]

Reducing taxes has been the right wing mantra ever since Reagan took power in 1976. This faulty logic is supported by organizations in Canada like the Fraser Institute, the Conservative party, the Green party, and the right wing of the Liberal party. There is not a shrewd of unbiased research available anywhere that can show lower taxes are good for society. It is another one of those capitalist's myths, similar to the one being perpetuated that Reagan ended communism. Anyone heard of a fellow named Gorbachov?

[brianw]

Reducing taxes has been the right wing mantra ever since Reagan took power in 1976.

Actually, the need to reduce taxes has been around a lot longer than that. It was a wopping 5% tax rate that spured the American revolution. Can you imagine how upset those people would be if they could see the extremely high rates most people endure today? The French revolution was based on the same reasons. High taxes with low value for money. People couldn't afford to eat yet the beuracracy of the time was "living high on the hog".

There is not a shrewd of unbiased research available anywhere that can show lower taxes are good for society.

One example would be New Zealand. They had an extremely bloated government with high taxes. The people said "enough is enough". Noe they have less government than PEI, lower taxes and the economy is moving in the right direction.

Could you explain how bloated beuracracies help society? They simply consume what they take and eventually take more and more with no results. Ambition continues to decline, who wants to work two days and get paid for only one while otheres sit on their butts and live quite well. Who wants to get up and go to work for a government that spends money like it is "going out of style"? The more money a government wants amd gets the more corruption that creepes in. We are seeing exactly this happening in most aspects of government right now.

Reagan ended communism.

Now that is a myth with plenty of evidence to show he did not. Your reason though is quite off. Communism ended because it was even worse for creating enthusiasm than our system (but we are getting there). The state owned everything, jobs, buildings, homes, food, etc... It did not matter how much "drive" someone had they could not get ahead. We are seeing this here, just ask any of the "old timers" who escaped those regimes.

[Guest eureka]

Your take on the tax situation shows a lot of absorption of the deception of the neo-libs. It does not show much understanding of an economy or of a country.

There is, as MS said, not a shred of evidence that a low tax regime is better for an economy than a higher taxed one. There is evidence to the contrary. There is also a mountain of evidence that social conditions are better in the higher taxed states.

"Bloated bureaucracy" is the cry of the deceivers. It is not a consequence of any tax regime. A bureaucracy is made of the required employees to run smoothly the apparatus of state. Reducing it to put more money in your pocket merely increases the expenditures you make for those services that are no longer provided. It pays more for the employees of whatever private enteprise fills the need - if the need is filled as it is not in some "low tax" states.

The tax rate did not "spur" the American Revolution. Not at all. America was lower taxed than the mother country and received military protection for nothing. The fomentors of the Revolution knew that but were, like the neo-libs in Canada, anxious to persuade a gullible and ignorant population to enhance their leaders wealth and stature. They succeeded just as the con men in Canada nearly did recently.

New Zealand almost fell apart after its right wing takeover. It has got back on the right track (almost) after re-instituting many of the things it threw out. Less government than PEI! don't be silly. It has twenty times the population of PEI and a national government to run.

Reagn did not "end Communism" Not in the Soviet Union or elsewhere. Reagan almost spent America into a depression in the same manner that Bush is now doing. Yeltsin laid the groundwork and Gorbachev finished the job with the impetus provided by the Pope and the growing internal strains in the Soviets and its client states.

I did not reply to you earlier response to me because, frankly, I consider your points no less than idiotic.

[August1991]

Yeltsin laid the groundwork and Gorbachev finished the job with the impetus provided by the Pope and the growing internal strains in the Soviets and its client states.

Huh? The Pope? Yeltsin first and then Gorbachev?

eureka, your knowledge of these basic facts seems shaky...

The more relevant point is that the Soviet Union collapsed.

Nothing works as well as free markets. Many leftists in western countries still don't understand this because, fundamentally, these leftists don't understand how markets work. That's sad.

And please don't accuse me of being a neo-con, neo-lib oogy-boogy bad guy. I understand how markets work - can we now move on to discussing what the State should do and how it should do it?

In Canada, various governments take about 25% of all the good and services produced in the economy. They take another 25% and in effect, redistribute it among ourselves. Lastly, governments regulate in some manner virtually every transaction that takes placed in Canada.

In practical terms, Canadians on average give about half their income to government, and then get back half that in transfer payments.

Yet, you guys on the left think the government is too small and you want to make it bigger.

Have you ever heard that line? "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it."

[Newfie Canadian]

Well August, I may be left leaning in many matters, but I believe that government is way too big.

I do believe that the bureaucracy is too big, that senior bureaucrats have a lot more power than we think, and that in the age of government agencies, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Committees, government has gotten so overblown that the left hand can't possibly know what the right hand is doing.

[Guest eureka]

I am not so confident that I can believe you know how"free markets" work; or what is a free market.

Government size in Canada shrank dramatically under the Liberal government of Chretien from the truly bloated levels of the Mulroney years. Therein lies one of the largest savings and contributors to the surpluses. I have said that before - maybe in this discussion and have given the numbers.

We have experienced some of the consequences of that reductionin the decline of our healthcare system: in the reduction of necessary social programs such as social housing: in the great increase in poverty due, in large measure to the decimation of the welfare and EI programs.

How the Soviet Union collapsed is relevant in this since it was not through the bloated structure of the Reagan government: it was not from his runaway expenditures on the military/industrial comples. It was the internal collapse of a failing system. Gorbachev expected reform not collapse. Wild spending, as epitomized by the Reagan administration did more to drag on his own country's progress than to hurt the Soviets.

Yor comments on what we pay should be tempered by consideration of what we get in return: whether the benefits of needed government programs could be provided more efficacioulsy or cheaply by Private Enterprise.

The answer is provably no.

[playfullfellow]

Isn't there a point though where the government takes more than it gives back? You talk about the sad state of our healthcare and social programs is due to cut backs by the government. This is true in a sense but the system failed to eliminate waste. We have several departments that all seem to do the same job. When you have to contact the government to ask them a question, how many times do you get transfered before you get to someone who actually has a clue. How much money is wasted each year on expense accounts? There is too much waste in government departments and not enough money being spent to the good. Look at our fuel taxes. These taxes are collected for the purpose of rebuilding our roads. Only around 16 percent is put back into our roads. Other countries spend around 60 percent of their fuel taxes to rebuild roads. I guess that is why we have third world roads in this country. Then you hear about the government spending a bucket full of money on golf balls with the intials JC on them. This is the kind of waste that makes us wonder what the hell is going on and frankly a person gets tired of working over half of the year this kind of crap. It is like any investment, if you felt you got a good return for your taxes, then you wouldn't mind. But right now, we seem to be getting a real crappy return for our hard work.

As for New Zealand, they spent themselves into oblivion and near bankruptcy on social programs before they realized the mess they were in. They cut every subsidy and social program to get back out of the crapper. The general consensous is that cuts hurt like hell at first but the people got used to them and now the people are happy to see the country getting rid of their debt.

[brianw]

Your take on the tax situation shows a lot of absorption of the deception of the neo-libs.

No, it just shows basic logic.

There is, as MS said, not a shred of evidence that a low tax regime is better for an economy than a higher taxed one.  There is evidence to the contrary.

Try reading a little history and you would find the evidence. History is full of free markets that become over regulated and over taxed. The ecomony colapses and a revolution occurs. History keeps repeating itself over and over and people like you keep the wheel in motion.

There is also a mountain of evidence that social conditions are better in the higher taxed states.

Conditions seem better until the ones doing the work get fed up. As I stated before it gets to the point where people don't want to get up and work for nothing. The only ones who support such a system are the ones living off the system. More and more people are reffering to these people as parasites because they simply latch on and bleed the people for everything they can.

"Bloated bureaucracy" is the cry of the deceivers.

Again it is simply a fact. You just don't seem to like facts that don't support transfer payments.

A bureaucracy is made of the required employees to run smoothly the apparatus of state.

Maybe an idealistic one is but in reality they become bigger and begger the more the consume. And it is a fact that a bureaucracy simply consumes without producing anything.

Reducing it to put more money in your pocket merely increases the expenditures you make for those services that are no longer provided.

Only if I require the service. On average I would pay less because I would not be paying for several departments to sit around consuming and wasting while I do not need the service.

It pays more for the employees of whatever private enteprise fills the need - if the need is filled as it is not in some "low tax" states.

If the need is not filled then chances are there is no need only a want. This idea that only the government will probide a need is totally bogus. There have always been organizations who have filled the needs of people much more efficeintly. The government simply took over and wastes more than it actually helps. The problem is these organizations don't just give money to people they actually require the people to put a little effort into there own help.

The tax rate did not "spur" the American Revolution.

Again you need to study history a little more. Your views seem to be distorted by your love of transfer payments.

It has twenty times the population of PEI and a national government to run.

There you go. You are making an assumption that just because it has 20 times the population that it needs a large bureaucracy to run it. Again you need to do a little more investigation.

I did not reply to you earlier response to me because, frankly, I consider your points no less than idiotic.

You consider facts to be idiotic? Or maybe you just wanted to keep your head in the sand and hope I went away?

[Guest eureka]

You make many statements but not one reasoned response, You must, I would suggest be reading from a Harper pamphlet which would be short on logic or fact but high on slogans. You do not give a single fact.

History is full of unregulated markets that collapsed in Capitalist systems. History is full of examples of societies that had low tax regimes and collapsed under the weight of the social unrest that comes from an uncared for society.

There comparative studies of high and low tax regimes in the modern world. They show no difference in economic performance but considerable advantage to the lower taxed in social stability.

If you consider that to be a part of history, then read some history.

Your talk of "parasites" identifies the wrong group. There are parasites who "latch on." They are the already wealthy and their political sycophants who order society to their personal benefit. They are a common insect, particularly in North America.

What an idiotic statement it is that "People don't want to get up and work for nothing." Even Harper and the Fraser Institute do not indulge themselves in such foolishness.

"Bloated Bureaucracy" is not a fact: It is a judgement. And it is a judgement that no one is qualified to make without studying the reqquirements of administration. It is another Roght Wing slogan. And bureaucracies are every bit as much of the production side of an economy as any industry you might be engaged in. The one difference between you and a bureaucrat is that the buresucrat is likely to be efficient as well as productive since he will, of necessity, have some understanding of the way things work whereas you don't.

There is, for example, no such thing as a "fact" that does not support transfer payments and no possibility of ever discovering one. No society can function without such transfers.

I suppose that your potential need for a cancer operation is really only a want, then? You won't really need it and there will be an organization that can do it more effectively and cheaply?

And, several departments are "sitting around consuming and wasting" while they wait for you to need the service.

You talk of history and imply that you have read some. If you really had ever "cracked" a history book, then you would know what I posted to be true. Taxes in North America were lower than in the mother country and the Stamp Tax was imposed to try to gain some colonial input into its own protection.

Taxes were merely an excuse for the elites of the colonies to arouse the mob. Just like the neo-libs arouse the ignorant in Canada and the US.

Where do I make an assumption that New Zealand needs a large bureaucracy to run it? I pointed out to you the foolishness of the statement that it has a bigger one than Prince Edward Island. It has, however, retreated from the right wing excesses and resuscitated many of the babies it threw out with the bathwater.

[August1991]

Government size in Canada shrank dramatically under the Liberal government of Chretien from the truly bloated levels of the Mulroney years. Therein lies one of the largest savings and contributors to the surpluses. I have said that before - maybe in this discussion and have given the numbers.

You have claimed this eureka, but you have NEVER provided evidence.

In fact, since 1960 and through the 1990s, Canadian governments together have just grown larger in terms of total production they procure or transfer. God knows how much more governments regulate our dealings.

History is full of examples of societies that had low tax regimes and collapsed under the weight of the social unrest that comes from an uncared for society.

I, for one, am not advocating that governments desist from active participation in our affairs. I even agree that it should take from the rich and give to the poor.

My question is: When should a government stop?

eureka, do you really believe that when governments take on average half of what people earn, and regulate everything we do, that's not enough?

Do you really believe governments should get involved more in our lives?

Your talk of "parasites" identifies the wrong group. There are parasites who "latch on." They are the already wealthy and their political sycophants who order society to their personal benefit. They are a common insect, particularly in North America.

"Already wealthy and political sycophants" - I agree with you. So, how to stop them?

[Guest eureka]

I did indeed supply the facts of reduction in government employment. I gave it in percentages.

The figures - I cannot recall exactly - were in 1993 about 3,200,000 in all government services in Canada: in 1998 about 2,900,000. They have climbed a little since then as some social programs have been improved. That still represents a very substantial reduction since the population has grown rather significantly since 1993 without any corresponding increase in public service.

What is enough can perhaps be dcided when people will make valid comparisons. If the services provided by government in a moderate tax regime are compared to those provided by government in a high tax regime plus those employed in providing for like services by non-governmental means, are compared there may be something to actually work on.

Since we know that, in the USA, the medical services provided by government in Canada are provided fromprivate sources in the US at considerably greater cost and with considerably more employees, then it is hard to justify criticism of a tax differntial on that score.

The same can be said of many utilities as well as welfare programs. I have read estimates that the average American is actually worse off than the average Canadian when all taxes and non-tax necessary services are taken into account.

[playfullfellow]

The same can be said of many utilities as well as welfare programs. I have read estimates that the average American is actually worse off than the average Canadian when all taxes and non-tax necessary services are taken into account.

There is a lot of differences between the 2 countries to begin with. For instance, the US spends a whole whack more of their GDP on theor military. But you still have not addressed the issue of government waste that we seem to have here in Canada. There seems to be a whack of piggies at the trough and they only seem interested in taking more out of our yearly income. Where is the incentive for the average, hard working Canadian to keep paying taxes? How can we afford to lose more of our wages? As it is, we find it hard to keep up because there seems to be less value in our paycheques at the end of each year. There needs to be more accountability for the money we send to Ottawa each year.