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Horwath, NDP: "Donate a little bit more taxes....."


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1 minute ago, Argus said:

No, to the US. Why do you think two thirds of software engineering grads moved south last year?

Software engineering grads are 'wealtihy' ?  What ?

 

I keep asking about the minimum wage hike's supposed impact on our economy.  When I initially asked, people who were against it softened their predictions of impact and fell back on a moral argument, ie. macroeconomic policies set by the government are effectively matters of the heart I guess.

 

We need to be competitive but it really is a numbers argument whether you are on one side or the other.

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1 minute ago, Argus said:

I think Ford learned from Hudak that you don't tell people bad news before an election. In order to get the savings he's going to have to cut spending, and that probably means job cuts, hiring freezes, a freeze on salaries of public sector workers or even a roll-back. How much of which are in the mix depends, to some extent, on how much the real deficit is.

Do you have the same rules about lying for Liberals and Conservatives ?

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Just now, Michael Hardner said:

Software engineering grads are 'wealtihy' ?  What ?

Yes, according to the definition of 'wealthy' used by the Ontario Liberals in the past and the federal Liberals as well. I am wealthy and have been subjected to multiple tax increases from both feds and provs because of my vast wealth. I've had to lay off one of the maids.

Just now, Michael Hardner said:

I keep asking about the minimum wage hike's supposed impact on our economy.  When I initially asked, people who were against it softened their predictions of impact and fell back on a moral argument, ie. macroeconomic policies set by the government are effectively matters of the heart I guess.

 

It's too early to really tell except that it appears to have led to a substantial fall in the number of part time workers, and a significant increase in the costs of services like daycare, home care and groceries/restaurants.

 

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1 minute ago, Michael Hardner said:

Do you have the same rules about lying for Liberals and Conservatives ?

I don't expect any of them to be honest. Do you?

Then again, honesty doesn't win elections. Canadian voters want to be promised roses and wine, all without costs.

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4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) You are likely basing this on one government  - Bob Rae's Ontario Liberals in the 90s - and ignoring the sensible and pragmatic NDP governments of the prairies before that time.

2) Mulroney... Harper... these were conventional PMs.  Again you seem to be focusing on Ontario in the 90s where Harris did 'attack' the deficit.

3) Here's the chart, do you see drunken sailor behaviour in this ?  You like politics but you probably need to familiarize yourself with some unconventional knowledge.

1) It's not only actual governments - it's the policies and principles of NDP parties who have tried to win power. If you have to go back to before 1990 to find an example of "sensible", I can only encourage you to note that times have changed in the past 50 years.

2) Glad you agree that Mulroney and Harper were "conventional" PMs. Throw in Brad Wall and Ralph Klein as well.  And it's not about "attacking" the deficit - it's about having a plan that returns us to within shouting distance of a balanced budget.

3) You're just believing what the Liberals say - and that alone should give you pause to dig a little deeper. When they got into power and tripled their spending - they substituted their "modest deficits" tag-line for reducing their debt-to-GDP ratio. A clever fall-back. If your growth in spending is in step with the growth in GDP, you'll at least be able to tread water on the ratio. Two critical exposures with that plan - aside from the fact that Trudeau's ratio is already beginning to creep upwards - not down.

One: spending growth is already outpacing GDP growth - and of course, there is no guarantee that we will have a steadily growing economy - we are in precarious global times. There's a huge exposure for a rising debt-to-GDP ratio. 

Two: Deficits can be made up of one-time expenditures (like infrastructure) or be the result of bigger government (structural deficit). Harper as an example - spent billions on one time short term infrastructure investments and thus was able to pivot back to a balanced budget. Trudeau has failed to keep his promise on infrastructure and instead, is growing the size of government. So it's not necessarily how much you spend - it's how you spend it.

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5 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

1) It's not only actual governments - it's the policies and principles of NDP parties who have tried to win power. If you have to go back to before 1990 to find an example of "sensible", I can only encourage you to note that times have changed in the past 50 years.

2) Glad you agree that Mulroney and Harper were "conventional" PMs. Throw in Brad Wall and Ralph Klein as well.  

3) You're just believing what the Liberals say - and that alone should give you pause to dig a little deeper. When they got into power and tripled their spending - they substituted their "modest deficits" tag-line for reducing their debt-to-GDP ratio. 

 

1) Well they don't get elected much anymore.  And you are the one who used the term 'history' not me.

2) Yes.  

3) Ok, but... Sorry - tripled their spending ?  I am not familiar with their promises either way but please provide a cite.  I agree that tripling the budget would be drunk sailor territory.

 

Ok on the rest of your post.

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I think I'm like a lot of Ontarians who simply believe the province is broke. What can any party do to fix this other than strip the role of government down to basics? I have siblings who live in the U.S. who are shocked at how much we pay for things, including taxes, and how little average middle class people get in return. In particular, our health care system in Ontario is in shambles. Transit is a mess. Affordable housing for middle class people has evaporated. But where has all the money gone? What have we to show for it? I'm pessimistic about this province's future unless we adopt the approach that the role of government must be limited. It can't lead to a worse situation than now exists, in my opinion. 

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1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

3) Ok, but... Sorry - tripled their spending ?  I am not familiar with their promises either way but please provide a cite.  I agree that tripling the budget would be drunk sailor territory.

 

I was actually being nice to Mr. Trudeau. Inn his campaign, Trudeau outlined a "fully costed" platform with deficits of $9.9 billion in his first year in office in 2016-17, $9.5 billion in 2017-18, $5.7 billion in 2018-19, with a $1 billion surplus in 2019-20 in the fourth and final year of his election mandate. That's a total of $25 billion in debt, give or take.

Then came Trudeau's March, 2017 budget showing deficits of $23 billion, $28.5 billion, $27.4 billion - and finally $23.4 billion instead of his stated "cast in stone" balanced budget. That's a total of just over $100 billion of debt, give or take - FOUR times what he promised. And worst - the deficits will continue unabated for years.

If you were ready to agree that tripling the budget was "drunken sailor" territory, I'd be curious to know what label you'd attach to this kind of spending. Outrageous comes to mind.

Link: http://torontosun.com/2017/10/11/trudeau-by-the-numbers-theyre-bad/wcm/cbd1b9d5-8d0e-4ce9-b3a2-0e2da1b980a2

 

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33 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

 Then came Trudeau's March, 2017 budget showing deficits of $23 billion, $28.5 billion, $27.4 billion - and finally $23.4 billion instead of his stated "cast in stone" balanced budget. That's a total of just over $100 billion of debt, give or take - FOUR times what he promised. And worst - the deficits will continue unabated for years.

If you were ready to agree that tripling the budget was "drunken sailor" territory, I'd be curious to know what label you'd attach to this kind of spending. Outrageous comes to mind.

 

It's a tripling of the deficit.  The budget is almost $400B.  He didn't triple spending.  He increased it by $16B a year over $385B or whatever.  Not fiscally prudent, but not drunken sailor either.  

Look, I'm not a fan of the Liberals but don't say they're tripling they're spending and come back with bullshit like this.  Just say you overstated and we'll move on and agree to despise JT.

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40 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

It's a tripling of the deficit.  The budget is almost $400B.  He didn't triple spending.  He increased it by $16B a year over $385B or whatever.  Not fiscally prudent, but not drunken sailor either.  

Look, I'm not a fan of the Liberals but don't say they're tripling they're spending and come back with bullshit like this.  Just say you overstated and we'll move on and agree to despise JT.

No - we won't move on. I DID say triple the spending and I was wrong and you are right - I did mean triple the deficit as you can clearly see from my response. Goes to show that words matter. Now we can move on.

Edited by Centerpiece
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32 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

No - we won't move on. I DID say triple the spending and I was wrong and you are right - I did mean triple the deficit as you can clearly see from my response. Goes to show that words matter. Now we can move on.

And we can clink glasses that JT is insufferable.  Though still a better PM than Sir Mackenzie Bowell

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19 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

And we can clink glasses that JT is insufferable.  Though still a better PM than Sir Mackenzie Bowell

I clinked earlier - but just had a tea and clinked. Good old Bowell. I went to elementary school in Montreal. People may be surprised that the school system was very British - we sang God Save the Queen - but more relevant, we had a good grounding in Canadian history - including all the Prime Ministers. I have to admit - I had to refresh myself on Mack Bowell. I found this website to have good, straight forward summaries on all our PMs. All I can say about our current school system and students is "Why can't they be like we were - perfect in every way.......". :)

Link: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-mackenzie-bowell/

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6 hours ago, turningrite said:

I think I'm like a lot of Ontarians who simply believe the province is broke. What can any party do to fix this other than strip the role of government down to basics? I have siblings who live in the U.S. who are shocked at how much we pay for things, including taxes, and how little average middle class people get in return. In particular, our health care system in Ontario is in shambles. Transit is a mess. Affordable housing for middle class people has evaporated. But where has all the money gone? What have we to show for it? I'm pessimistic about this province's future unless we adopt the approach that the role of government must be limited. It can't lead to a worse situation than now exists, in my opinion. 

The money goes to addressing whatever issues people who can vote have. The problem is that once you start paying to address an issue you're pretty much committed to continuing to do so on a permanent basis. And every time someone starts complaining about some other issue that needs to be taken care of, a weak government salivating after votes immediately starts offering up more money to take care of that one. And so on and so on, until we have the government with its fingers in every pie. And of course, all of that needs lots of government workers, and if you're a political party campaigning for votes from government workers, not to mention donations, you are nice to them come salary negotiations and keep giving them higher and higher salaries. I don't know where on earth public servants are paid more than Ontario, but there can't be many places. And by public servants I include everything from counter clerks to people who clean the toilet in hospitals to police, firefighters and bus drivers.

 

 

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10 hours ago, turningrite said:

I think I'm like a lot of Ontarians who simply believe the province is broke. What can any party do to fix this other than strip the role of government down to basics? I have siblings who live in the U.S. who are shocked at how much we pay for things, including taxes, and how little average middle class people get in return. In particular, our health care system in Ontario is in shambles. Transit is a mess. Affordable housing for middle class people has evaporated. But where has all the money gone? What have we to show for it? I'm pessimistic about this province's future unless we adopt the approach that the role of government must be limited. It can't lead to a worse situation than now exists, in my opinion. 

What Ontario needs is more freedom from an over bloated bureaucracy full of so many rules and regulations that stifle growth to have to deal with. Way too many taxes and fees that have been placed on the Ontario taxpayer. A hiring freeze would be the first thing to do. Then as people retire or quit or die off do not replace their jobs with new people. Move government  employees around from one department to another. Downsize the dam place. Privatize a lot of government services. Stop all kinds of immigration legal and illegal into Ontario which is costing the taxpayer's of Ontario billions of tax dollars every year. Stop the encroachment of bilingualism and end multicultural programs and agendas. If you want to see Ontario prosper once again then the people must demand more freedom, less government, and less taxes. Government is the problem never the solution. Having in place citizen initiated referendums and the right to recall must become the law of Ontario. Implement those things mentioned above and I believe that Ontario will be the place that people will want to run to and not run away from. 

 

Ontario is not broke, it is bankrupt. How it keeps running is amazing. 

Edited by taxme
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4 hours ago, taxme said:

If you want to see Ontario prosper once again then the people must demand more freedom, less government, and less taxes. Government is the problem never the solution. Having in place citizen initiated referendums and the right to recall must become the law of Ontario. Implement those things mentioned above and I believe that Ontario will be the place that people will want to run to and not run away from. 

 

Ontario is not broke, it is bankrupt. How it keeps running is amazing. 

Whenever the government interferes......

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There have been a few mis-steps in the Ford campaign that have been labelled as "scandals" by the media. The 407 scandal, the fundraiser scandal, etc. CBC and The Star have been trying to make hay in saying that the NDP are charging ahead and closing the gap. In fact, the CBC Poll tracker simply shows that the NDP are winning over some of the Liberal vote. The Conservatives have actually gained a bit, and the NDP have lost a bit overall. Much like with Rob Ford and the Toronto Mayoral campaign, it appears the more that the media try to taint Doug, the better he will do. Here's the latest CBC Poll Tracker:

Link: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/onvotes/poll-tracker/

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On 5/8/2018 at 6:58 AM, betsy said:

Horwath had admitted at an interview after the debate last night, that indeed we'll get taxed more if she wins - after all, someone has to help pay for all the free prescriptions/meds, free childcare, free dental care,  social housing,  more inject sites, etc..,   "Donate a little bit more taxes," she replied.

 

Incidentally, my NDP neighbour has been saying the same thing:  let's pay a little bit more taxes to help others.   That must be the new NDP mantra.

At least, Horwath came out saying it.  By implying it is a donation,  she makes it sound like as if you've got any choice about it!  Or, how much you want to give! :lol:  She really thinks voters are so stupid! 

 

 

  Now, on top of the huge deficit we now have (thanks to Wynne), and with all the HUGE socialist spending Horwath has promised to do.............just how much is "little?"

 

WE? Who's the 'we' that will be paying higher taxes? Mostly those in the top income bracket who believe that neither they/nor the corporations they control should have to pay any taxes. If supply side economic theory actually worked in practice, the "rising tide" would have been raising all boats south of the border for the past 30 years already instead of making America even more unequal and dysfunctional! A vote for the Cons is vote for a US style hollowed out economy.

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6 hours ago, WIP said:

WE? Who's the 'we' that will be paying higher taxes? Mostly those in the top income bracket who believe that neither they/nor the corporations they control should have to pay any taxes. If supply side economic theory actually worked in practice, the "rising tide" would have been raising all boats south of the border for the past 30 years already instead of making America even more unequal and dysfunctional! A vote for the Cons is vote for a US style hollowed out economy.

Oh....don't let that fool you.  Taxes end up biting everyone!

Who do you think will end up shouldering the carbon taxes and the higher taxes for corporations????  The CONSUMERS!

 

 

Quote

 

What a carbon price means for consumers

Gasoline, power and heating will all get more expensive to encourage energy efficiency

Prices will also rise for items that we don't immediately think about, such as food and other retail goods, since they are often transported by diesel-burning vehicles.  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/carbon-price-consumer-impact-1.3789224

 

 

Edited by betsy
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12 hours ago, WIP said:

WE? Who's the 'we' that will be paying higher taxes? Mostly those in the top income bracket who believe that neither they/nor the corporations they control should have to pay any taxes.

When people like Horvath and Trudeau refer to 'the wealthy' they are not talking about people who control corporations. The additional taxes on 'the wealthy' that the federal and provincial governments have imposed over the past several years have been aimed at the upper middle class - doctors, lawyers, software engineers, entrepreneurs, accountants, architects, etc., not the people who are driven around in limousines.

Quote

If supply side economic theory actually worked in practice, the "rising tide" would have been raising all boats south of the border for the past 30 years 

It has been. It has also been raising all boats across the world for the past 30 years. 

Edited by Argus
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Andrea Horvath demonstrates the usual lefty fondness for non-Canadians. She not only wants to declare Ontario a 'sanctuary province' for illegal immigrants, but wants to give them the vote. Not only would illegal immigrants be eligible for all government services, including public housing, welfare and health care, without paying any taxes, they'd also be able to vote in municipal elections!  And people wonder why I consider Socialists pie-in-the-sky loons without a drop of common sense!

Still, I'm sure all those Nigerians coming in across the US border will be reassured that even if Trudeau's sappy, naive refugee panels don't allow them to stay, they can stay anyway, in Horvath's Ontario.

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5 hours ago, betsy said:

Oh....don't let that fool you.  Taxes end up biting everyone!

Who do you think will end up shouldering the carbon taxes and the higher taxes for corporations????  The CONSUMERS!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/carbon-price-consumer-impact-1.3789224

 

Certainly, carbon taxes are similar to sales taxes (which conservatives don't seem to object to, since it was Mulroo who brought us the GST to start with!) in that even the poorest people have to buy food, clothing and other necessities as well as paying rent, and all taxes on consumption are going to pull more money out of the pockets of lower income earners than richer people who...as we hear so often about the Filthy Rich - can only buy so many mansions, cars, yachts, private tropical islands etc. with their ill-gotten gains. Therefore consumer taxes take proportionately less from the rich than those in the lower income demographics. That was the only reason why the Feds sweetened the deal offering GST-now-HST rebates here in Ontario...which don't matter a crap if you're in the middle income levels and earn too much to qualify for rebates!

But, as the CBC story notes, many of us who had spent years doing long commutes on the highway back n forth to work started feeling an incentive to give up driving 100 miles every day as we got older and the long drives started taking more out of us by way of sleep deprivation. That along with rising insurance costs, gas, vehicle maintenance and just having to go through buying a new or newer 2nd hand vehicle every 4 to 5 years was enough to push me to move closer to work, even if it meant having to drop one or both cars entirely! If you move into an urban center with good public transit access...not to mention if you don't mind riding a bike or running and walking a few miles each day, getting rid of the car is a pleasure...not to mention reducing carbon impacts of the vehicle and the carbon/resource costs of producing more and more cars!

There was a time in Canada and the US when nobody had a car, and it wasn't until after the end of WWII that the majority of working adults were buying and driving their own cars. This move to the private automobile is presented as a personal consumer choice in our BS historical narratives, but according to my father...who grew up and came of age during the Depression and went to war along with so many others of that generation, he intended to get married, buy a house and do other things before thinking about buying a car...BUT he felt like he had no choice because cities and towns where he moved to (Niagara Peninsula) started ending bus service to factories, closing street car rail lines..like one that ran along the Welland Canal from Port Colbourne to St. Catharines, and scaling back local transit as well as between cities and towns. This all occurred at a time when the Feds borrowed billions from the Bank of Canada (then still printing the money, and having the power to loan money into existence..that was handed over to the chartered banks) all to build hundreds of miles of new highways across Ontario and across Canada. Like the building of the state highway system in the US, this all could be considered a free gift from the Governments to the Highway Lobby- the car companies, oil companies and their investors. 

Now, putting this all out there, I ask 'why can't we take it back in the other direction, now that we know the environmental crisis this world is headed for, as well as looming resource shortages and rising prices that continued car production will cause?'

I think the real problem and likely futility of trying to deal with environmental crises is that most people want to save the future for the generations coming after us, PROVIDED it doesn't cost them any...even the slightest discomfort! Recently, a nationwide poll found that almost 80% of Canadians accept the standard narrative on GHG's causing global warming BUT, barely 20% are willing to spend more or receive less in benefits to deal with the crisis! 

To me, this tells me that liberals are the worst actors of all in this drama! Unlike conservatives, they don't live in denial of scientific evidence or could care less, but instead want to pretend to be doing something about it that will cost them very little....like turning out the lights on Earth Day!  Now, I believe the only hope for survival of complex life on Planet Earth and the only fainter hope of human survival for more than another century is the total collapse and end of modern capitalist industrial civilization. At some point in the future of this crazy system, everything will be used up beyond the point of profitability and the exploitation of this world will end! I just hope that people can survive somewhere on this planet as it continues heating up over the next thousand years or so!

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