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Ontario Budget 05.


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I think it will be. Dalton McGuinty clearly doesn't have the heart to make the cuts to stop this deficit. He's just praying for more cash from the in trouble Martin Liberals. That's the easiest way out, and the least honourable way to solve the problem. You have to look at the whole picture, not just the '23 billion gap'. With the new agreements with the teachers and doctors, McGuinty is in trouble.

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But he did his share of cutting: he eliminated the religious school tax credit; reduced OHIP coverage just to name two.

But he had to concede defeat for a couple rock-solid Tory deals (that would have made money for Ontario if the Tories hadn't touched them). If you mean to balance the budget to appease these lingering Tory initiatives, then it'll be another full-blown Common Sense Revolution.

I thought you were against that.

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It seriously shatters my brain when I think about how I'm paying more this year for OHIP, yet coverage has been cut, only to turn around and read that there is STILL a deficit budget.

I mean, what's the solution seriously?

The whole deal with the Ontario government is completely outrageous. I wish my feeble little mind could grasp these concepts.

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Guest eureka

Ontario probably profits by more than $23 billion from its exports to the rest of Canada. We pay more in taxes because we take in more from everwhere but Alberta. Canada is now the hinterland to Ontario and we should be paying more to keep it that way.

McGuinty made one huge mistake and I wrote him off when he did it. That was in signing the "Taxpayer's Pledge" to win the approval of a small ideological interest group.

An intelligent campaign would have focused on the damage to Ontario done by the Harris mania for cuts and to where the money went.

We needed to restore a sensible and fair tax regime. The cost of the deficits; of the giveaways, will be wtih us for a long time in interest payments on the money borrowed to amke up the shortfall. They will also require large amounts of money to rebuild the damaged institutions and programmes.

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Ontario probably profits by more than $23 billion from its exports to the rest of Canada. We pay more in taxes because we take in more from everwhere but Alberta. Canada is now the hinterland to Ontario and we should be paying more to keep it that way.

McGuinty made one huge mistake and I wrote him off when he did it. That was in signing the "Taxpayer's Pledge" to win the approval of a small ideological interest group.

An intelligent campaign would have focused on the damage to Ontario done by the Harris mania for cuts and to where the money went.

We needed to restore a sensible and fair tax regime. The cost of the deficits; of the giveaways, will be wtih us for a long time in interest payments on the money borrowed to amke up the shortfall. They will also require large amounts of money to rebuild the damaged institutions and programmes.

Funny how most Liberal supporters truly believe that throwing money at a problem will fix it.

Call me crazy but, increased taxes for decreased service is absurd.

This whole deficit thing has to be looked at in the proper context as well. If I make $20,000/year and buy a $500.000 home, it's a heck of a lot different than making $150,000/year and buying a $500,000 home. Debt/Credit can and does work to our benefit if you have the means to back it up.

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Daniel, I won't like how you are linking this topic with the Harris government. The Harris government ended a long time ago. Life does go on.

But McGuinty is spending way more than he's cutting, and he will suffer because of it. He might as well raise taxes.

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Guest eureka

The unkindest cuts of all were those to education and the dissemination of information to the public. That becomes clear when the ignorance of the public is exposed in calls for more cuts and less taxes.

We want health care restored to health; we want education to be put back on a sound footing; we want.... services restored to the levels of a civilized society.

But we don't want to pay for it.

How idiotic can it get.

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Ontario has a big deficit. The reason that we have such a deficit is that Mike Harris cut provincial taxes by $14 Billion when he was in power. That left a $6 Billion provincial deficit...

Before the last provincial election, the Liberals (Gerry Phillips, liberal finance critic) accused the Conservatives of hiding the fact that the deficit was over $5.5 Billion. The Conservatives denied it. In fact, Dalton McGuilty pretended he believed the Tories, and made all kinds of election promises that he couldn't keep... that he knew he couldn't keep (because he knew the size of the deficit)... and lied to get elected.

But what did the Liberals do.... they imposed a health tax... a tax that will acquire approximately $3 Billion... mostly from lower and middle income earners.... and who got the benefit of the Harris tax cuts.... a very small percentage of Ontarians.

I can understand taxpayers being upset about having higher taxes... because most Ontarians are paying more taxes than they were before Mike Harris. How is that... Most people do not realize that Mike Harris also shifted financial responsibility for a plethora of social services down to the municipality.... who had to raise property taxes to pay for them. So the majority of Ontarians are paying way more taxes than before Mike Harris, but the wealthiest Ontarians are paying less.

So all you casual armchair politicians who think Mike Harris and his mean-spirited ultra-right ideas helped you... you're wrong... Mike Harris is the reason that poorer and middle-income Ontarians pay more taxes and the very wealthy Ontarians (and corporations) pay less.

What really makes sense in not the slash and burn ideas espoused by the Conservatives, but rather to raise taxes 1/3 of the way back to where they were (for the wealthier Ontarians, because the rest of us are already paying more than we did), and we won't have a deficit.... and we won't have to cut all our services.

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Daniel, I won't like how you are linking this topic with the Harris government. The Harris government ended a long time ago. Life does go on.

But McGuinty is spending way more than he's cutting, and he will suffer because of it. He might as well raise taxes.

I guess for a kid like you two-years is a hell of a long time. (Yes, the Eves government is still a legacy Harris government).

Oldies like me remember past mistakes lest we are doomed to repeat them.

No issue today is a stand-alone issue. Everything is linked to previous initiatives and actions in the past.

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The reality is, daniel, you can't blame all the problems with Onatrio on the previous government. Any government who blames the previous one is unwilling to look at themselves at take action.

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The reality is, daniel, you can't blame all the problems with Onatrio on the previous government. Any government who blames the previous one is unwilling to look at themselves at take action.

What you have been suggesting the Liberals do is to make further cuts to balance the budget. If the Liberals do just that they'll be performing another Common Sense Revolution - which I read somewhere that you were opposed.

So whether or not you acknowledge or accept the current predicate was the result of the previous government, you are asking this current government to implement policies of the previous one - asking the Liberals to invoke Tory policies.

Like asking Tories to implement NDP policies - ain't gonna happen.

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Perhaps we can just hand over our entire paychecks to the government, maybe then the socialist systems will be fixed. [/sarcasm]

You want to know what the problem is?

The guy in the public hospitals that makes $18/hr to mop a floor. Having a board of directors for a single hospital campus that fills a two page spread in the local newspaper.

In the end, the problems amount to the government being horribly inefficient in running any type of business. And why should they be? They have 30 million people giving them billions of dollars a year because those people have no choice.

Let's add to this the suggestion that businesses and the rich should be taxed higher than everyone else (instead of at the same level) and you give corporations (who create jobs, obviously) absolutely no reason to want to start up or operate in our country/province.

In the end, I truly don't believe giving the government EVEN MORE funds to waste is the answer to any problem. The less the provincial and federal government do for us, the better....imho.

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Let's add to this the suggestion that businesses and the rich should be taxed higher than everyone else (instead of at the same level) and you give corporations (who create jobs, obviously) absolutely no reason to want to start up or operate in our country/province.

It might be interesting to note that Ontario corporations pay about 4% lower taxes than any American state bordering it.....

How many percentage points does Cybercoma think we should be below the USA so that we won't be scared companies will leave Ontario?? Should we all offer to work for minimum wage so that these companies will stay... or maybe we can decrease minimum wage even further so that we can compete with Indonesia for sweat-shop jobs.

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Let's add to this the suggestion that businesses and the rich should be taxed higher than everyone else (instead of at the same level) and you give corporations (who create jobs, obviously) absolutely no reason to want to start up or operate in our country/province.

It might be interesting to note that Ontario corporations pay about 4% lower taxes than any American state bordering it.....

How many percentage points does Cybercoma think we should be below the USA so that we won't be scared companies will leave Ontario?? Should we all offer to work for minimum wage so that these companies will stay... or maybe we can decrease minimum wage even further so that we can compete with Indonesia for sweat-shop jobs.

I'd like to see proof of this assertion that Ontario corporations are paying less taxes, as a percentage of income, than their American counterparts.

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Guest eureka

That Ontario has lower corporate taxes than neighbouring American states needs no production of proof. It should be known by anyone who feels qualified to discuss these issues,

That has appeared in print and in media discussions and reports possibly several hundred times over the past ten years or so.

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Guest eureka

I don't know what those studies are from since all I get is a blank page.

However, a couple of years ago it was estimated from reports I read ar the time , that in auto manufacturing the cost in Ontario was $29,000 a unit and in Michigan $46,000. The huge advantage to Ontario came from our health care vs the benefits that were company paid in the uS, and greater efficiency of Canadian plants. I don't remember what comprised a unit or whether it was ever said,

Corporate taxes are lower in Ontario: that has been reported for several years.

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The pages loaded for me Eureka. You need to have Adobe reader to be able to read the PDF files. If you have a dial up connection (like me) then you need to be very patient and wait for it all to load before reading.

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Guest eureka

I have Adobe. I use Netscape 7.2 and I tried Internet Explorer.

What I get is "done." and a white page. This seems to be happening quite a lot. I got the same thing when I went to a ection of a government site for some forms. The site was there but on linking to the form I wanted to print it - Done.

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Corporate taxes are lower in Ontario: that has been reported for several years.

Not only are Corporate taxes lower than in the USA, but personal taxes are considerably higher than in the USA.

I note that Conservative1's authors work for the CD Howe Institute.... a mean-spirited institute whose objective is to widen the gap between the wealthy and the majority of the population.... that wants to get rid of social services because they benefit the poor and middle income earners more than they benefit the wealthy... Their view have very little credibility with me (and a whole lot of other people).

Might I suggest some very good reading for Cybercoma and Conservative1 ... Linda McQuaig's "All You Can Eat", or "Shooting the Hippo".

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