Trudeau's Committment to Syrian Refugees - 25,000 by Year End

[Shady]

A deficit up to $25B per year (assuming normal growth rates) would result in Canada keeping its debt to GDP ratio at its current ~35%. I was extrapolating. Lets be generous and say $40B would make it go up by 1% a year. In 100 years, we still wouldn't be where Greece is.

Increased debt payments crowd out other spending priorities. It's not a matter of being Greece. Look, I get it, you're a true believer, so there really isn't anything to discuss. Logic means nothing. Btw, I love how you assume normal growth rates at the same time you want to increase taxes on goods and services. That's pretty rich.

[Smallc]

Increased debt payments crowd out other spending priorities. It's not a matter of being Greece. Look, I get it, you're a true believer, so there really isn't anything to discuss.

I never argued for running $40B deficits. It's simply a mathematical exercise.

I'm in agreement with you that we shouldn't run deficits. We should raise the GST. Canada clearly has a revenue problem at all levels of government.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Smallc

[Shady]

I never argued for running $40B deficits. It's simply a mathematical exercise.I'm in agreement with you that we shouldn't run deficits. We should raise the GST. Canada clearly has a revenue problem at all levels of government.

Why is not a spending problem? Why not reforms to save money? Your prime minister has chosen to spend over a billion dollars on refugees and you have the nerve to suggest a revenue problem? How about some cost cutting before raising taxes? Besides, revenues are down because of a slow economy. Raising taxes doesn't make economies grow faster. Raising taxes doesn't improve the global economic forecast and environment.

[Smallc]

Why is not a spending problem? Why not reforms to save money?

I'm sure you can find a few hundred million here or there, but it's not a lot. Government is at its smallest level as a percentage of the economy in 7 decades.

Your prime minister has chosen to spend over a billion dollars on refugees and you have the nerve to suggest a revenue problem?

Yes, I do have the nerve. I know how much things like roads and bridges and warships cost.

How about some cost cutting before raising taxes? Besides, revenues are down because of a slow economy.

And who left us with that? Hindsight being 20/20, cutting the GST was the dumbest move of any government in a long time.

Raising taxes doesn't make economies grow faster. Raising taxes doesn't improve the global economic forecast and environment.

Raising taxes won't really affect much at all, as long as you don't do something drastic.

[Argus]

A deficit up to $25B per year (assuming normal growth rates) would result in Canada keeping its debt to GDP ratio at its current ~35%. I was extrapolating. Lets be generous and say $40B would make it go up by 1% a year. In 100 years, we still wouldn't be where Greece is.

We currently owe $615 billion. We currently need to pay basically everything we get from the GST just on the interest - not on paying it back but on the interest. That's over $30b per year.

That's close enough to 5% to do some basic arithmetic. Now let's add eight years of Trudeau deficits at your $25B level (which is a lot less than the 40b you mentioned), that brings us to an $815b deficit, and interest payments up to $40billion a year (in today's dollars). Let's multiply this by ten, 80 years, not 100, just because it's easy to multiply by ten. That adds another $2 trillion onto the debt, by today's dollars, and increases our interest service cost to about $140billion a year. Again, just on interest. That's roughly half of what we collect. I leave it to you to figure out what the government will no longer be able to afford to do when it has to spend half its budget on servicing the debt.

But of course, you were just exaggerating, and I get that, but at the same time, you were displaying a blithe lack of care in us currently spending over 11% of our yearly budget on debt service costs, and the absolute certainty that this is going to get higher and higher every year.

[Argus]

I never argued for running $40B deficits. It's simply a mathematical exercise.

I'm in agreement with you that we shouldn't run deficits. We should raise the GST. Canada clearly has a revenue problem at all levels of government.

No, Canada clearly has a spending problem at all levels of government. That is because there seems to be no separation between what government needs to do, and what some people feel the government should do. And in almost all cases, the stuff people feel the government should do, can be far better and more effectively and more efficiently done by the private sector.

[Smallc]

But of course, you were just exaggerating, and I get that, but at the same time, you were displaying a blithe lack of care in us currently spending over 11% of our yearly budget on debt service costs, and the absolute certainty that this is going to get higher and higher every year.

I don't want to run any deficit. I do understand though, that there are several areas that are going to demand money very soon (infrastructure isn't a federal responsibility, but the federal government is a good vehicle to collect and distribute dollars - there is also the warship replacement that we don't have the money for). We need to raise taxes. I'm all for cutting the CBC and refugees and whatever else you can find. The reality is, that isn't what's costing us most of the money. The debt and defence are the two largest expenditures.

[Smallc]

No, Canada clearly has a spending problem at all levels of government. That is because there seems to be no separation between what government needs to do, and what some people feel the government should do. And in almost all cases, the stuff people feel the government should do, can be far better and more effectively and more efficiently done by the private sector.

And I'm in agreement with most of that. Even if we can cut program spending by 10%, we still have a revenue problem.

[Smallc]

Anyway, this is about refugees.

[Argus]

I don't want to run any deficit. I do understand though, that there are several areas that are going to demand money very soon (infrastructure isn't a federal responsibility, but the federal government is a good vehicle to collect and distribute dollars - there is also the warship replacement that we don't have the money for). We need to raise taxes. I'm all for cutting the CBC and refugees and whatever else you can find. The reality is, that isn't what's costing us most of the money. The debt and defence are the two largest expenditures.

The debt is costing us a lot and will cost us even more given we'll be doing nothing to pay it down, and instead will be adding to it for at least the next four years, or longer if Trudeau is in power longer (I don't expect a JT government to ever run a balanced budget).

As for refugees, the government has been careful to not tell us what that is costing, just as they avoid telling us what immigration costs. But it is a not inconsiderable amount. The Fraser institute put the cost of immigration at something over $20 billion a year to all levels of government.

[Shady]

We currently owe $615 billion. We currently need to pay basically everything we get from the GST just on the interest - not on paying it back but on the interest. That's over $30b per year.

That's close enough to 5% to do some basic arithmetic. Now let's add eight years of Trudeau deficits at your $25B level (which is a lot less than the 40b you mentioned), that brings us to an $815b deficit, and interest payments up to $40billion a year (in today's dollars). Let's multiply this by ten, 80 years, not 100, just because it's easy to multiply by ten. That adds another $2 trillion onto the debt, by today's dollars, and increases our interest service cost to about $140billion a year. Again, just on interest. That's roughly half of what we collect. I leave it to you to figure out what the government will no longer be able to afford to do when it has to spend half its budget on servicing the debt.

But of course, you were just exaggerating, and I get that, but at the same time, you were displaying a blithe lack of care in us currently spending over 11% of our yearly budget on debt service costs, and the absolute certainty that this is going to get higher and higher every year.

It's easy. His answer will be to raise taxes more, because we'll have a revenue problem.

[Shady]

And I'm in agreement with most of that. Even if we can cut program spending by 10%, we still have a revenue problem.

Once again, if the economy was growing at usual rates, the revenue would solve itself. However, it won't with a government that drastically increases spending, like our current one.

[Smallc]

Once again, if the economy was growing at usual rates, the revenue would solve itself. However, it won't with a government that drastically increases spending, like our current one.

I'd Hardly call in increase of 5-10% to be a drastic increase.

[Shady]

I'd Hardly call in increase of 5-10% to be a drastic increase.

I would. The Liberals in Ontario increased spending on average by 7 percent for several years. Our budget is now a complete and utter disaster.

[Smallc]

I would. The Liberals in Ontario increased spending on average by 7 percent for several years.

We're talking about a 1 time increase -something completely different.

Our budget is now a complete and utter disaster.

Actually, your budget is finally on track to be balanced, thanks to far more healthy growth rates.

[cannuck]

I'd Hardly call in increase of 5-10% to be a drastic increase.

10% is a HUGE increase - especially when you consider that even 10% back down, we would still be in deficit position.

The new residents of the Hill are showing their true, totally irresponsible colours.

[dialamah]

Ten thousand refugees today, only two weeks late. They'll soon start pouring in like rats from a sinking ship. They're "dirty, mean and mighty unclean, so lock up your daughters and wife, lock your back door and run for you life!"

/s

[GostHacked]

Once again, if the economy was growing at usual rates, the revenue would solve itself. However, it won't with a government that drastically increases spending, like our current one.

Gosh, only a couple months later and we can forget how Harper contributed to most of that. Unless Trudeau managed to totally wreck the country in only a few short months. I don't have that kind of faith in Trudeau.

Edited January 13, 2016 by GostHacked

[Argus]

Ten thousand refugees today, only two weeks late. They'll soon start pouring in like rats from a sinking ship. They're "dirty, mean and mighty unclean, so lock up your daughters and wife, lock your back door and run for you life!"

/s

As Tasha Kheirrddin points out in her column in today's Post;

The reality is that some cultures are more female-friendly than others. This is not a bigoted statement, but a factual one. In the World Economic Forum’s 2014 ranking of the best and worst countries to be a woman, Islamic countries made up 16 of the 20 worst nations. Syria ranked fourth-last. The Guardian’s graphic on women’s rights reveals that women in the Middle East enjoy the fewest rights of all women on the planet. And gender discrimination does not just affect women who live there. The International Women’s Travel Center’s 2015 List of Safest Countries in the World for Women Travelers concludes with the line, “At this time, we cannot recommend travel to any country in the Middle East.”

So if they would not recommend women visit any country in the Middle East why on Earth should women here be happy that tens of thousands of people from that region, with that culture, are coming here? Yet you make smirking remarks about 'lock up your daughters' in the face of what happened in Cologne and other cities.

Incidentally, I think she finally described what is wrong with modern feminism. It's that they're not feminists. That is, they care about women sort of, kind of, as a basket of other 'causes' that they're committed to, and can't bring themselves to place the importance of women and their rights above the rest of their ideological basket. Which is why we get feminists and left wingers furiously defending people who consider women as third class citizens.

For the past 25 years, ever since the term “intersectionality” was coined in reference to black feminism, the fight for women’s rights has become indivisible from the fight against other oppressive practices and institutions. Racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, xenophobia, capitalism, the patriarchy — in the fight against inequality, it’s become all for one and one for all.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/tasha-kheiriddin-the-attacks-in-cologne-reveal-the-ugly-truth-cultural-relativism-is-harmful-to-women

Edited January 14, 2016 by Argus

[ReeferMadness]

When the first Canadian is killed by a Syrian refugee I want Trudeau run out of office and I hope someone files a civil suit against him personally for criminal negligence. I doubt he can be charged criminally.

So then I presume you wish Stephen Harper to be held personally liable for every crime ever committed by a temporary foreign worker that entered Canada while he was PM?

[poochy]

Ten thousand refugees today, only two weeks late. They'll soon start pouring in like rats from a sinking ship. They're "dirty, mean and mighty unclean, so lock up your daughters and wife, lock your back door and run for you life!"

/s

Try as you might, you can't actually cover up reality by insinuating that people have said things that are either untrue, or outrageous, but thanks for the contribution.

[dialamah]

Try as you might, you can't actually cover up reality by insinuating that people have said things that are either untrue, or outrageous, but thanks for the contribution.

Members here have insinuated or outright said that the refugees are dirty, will smell bad and that more women in Canada will be sexually assaulted by them. No, not gonna search out those posts to prove it, cause if you don't think it's there, you ain't gonna see it.

[GostHacked]

IF people are upset about Syrian's with cell phones, one should look at the poor people in Canada that have cell phones.

[msj]

Ha!

It's a slippery slope: first the authoritarians want drug tests then they come for the cell phones.

How dare people find the means to... communicate.

Authoritarians gotta authoritate!

[Rue]

Dialamah scale it down your trying to reduce the effort people have made to discuss their views too the absurd simplistic name calling you have reflects your own thought processes not the ones of those you stereotype.

By the way I appreciate your sense of political propriety but the fact is people to smell and have different senses of hygiene. That is a fact. Pretending that is not so is ridiculous. Do you really think the photo ops with Trudeau were not screened? Get a grip. There is no way they would have him standing next to refugees with impitago, tuberculosis, lice, open weeping wounds, etc.

You want to live in a world where all refugees are cute, clean, wholesome and harmless, be my guest. In the real world, not every one washes and has access to water like you do. They in fact die in their refugee campus from parasites,cholera, typhoid fever,diaheria. They don't make it to Canada for photo ops.

If you can't get that point don't but the liberal guilt world you appear to live in blocks out the reality that the refugees we pick and choose to make people like you feel less guilty do not address most refugees who never leave their camps. If we were really serious about helping refgees we would send help to deal with their medical issues, provide clean water, clothing, at the camps and not move them traumatizing them into coming to Canada to placate your need to feel like you saved them. You liberal do gooders are simply turning them into displaced welfare dependent individuals who at best will have children angry and caught between disenfranchised parents and a new culture they assimilate to their parents reject.

Dirty? You bet some are dirty. You bet some have bad teeth. Get real. Saying that is fact. You can't handle that fine. I am not here to talk abut your sensibilities or sense of righteousness or presumption everyone who does not think like you is mean and bigoted.

We will be bringing in people with serious problems. Stating what those problems are is I know in your rose perfumed world bigoted, but in mine, it just is. Public crabs, lice, rotted teeth, bleeding bowels. open pustules, its the reality you and Trudeau who vacations in Nevis clearly don't dare deal with.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Rue