Chrétien - Do Nothing PM

[err]

A poor or middle class person lives cheque to cheque.... Paying GST on nearly everything they buy. A well-to-do person who can bank a portion of their cheque does not pay GST on that portion, and hence, are taxed at a lower rate.

Maybe, but the rich person will at least pay GST on the savings when the savings are spent (and why save if you'll never spend it).

Compare that with income tax and RRSPs. The rich person saves in RRSPs, avoids income tax now and won't pay income tax on it when the RRSP is cashed in. (They will pay GST though.)

Come to think about it err, you are suggesting that we should tax savings - including pension contributions.  If a poor person (and his employer) contribute to a pension scheme, should that money be included in the person's taxable income?  (At present, the contribution is deducted from income and no income tax is paid on it.)

Typical August, starts talking before even finishing hearing what's being said. I have a sister-in-law like you... but that's another story...

By stating that I'm against the GST, I'm not stating that we tax pensoin savings. That's quite a stretch, and this type of argument is called a "straw man". There are other methods of taxation... like the way they used to do it.... You're probably too young to remember Brian Mulroney, but before Mulroney, there was a manufacturers tax and a more progressive income tax... and no federal value-added-tax.

[err]

Chretien - Do Nothing PM

Signed the kyoto farce

Stuck a knife in the back of our closest ally

Kyoto a farce... You side with the brilliant scientist, George Bush on this one...

Stuck a knife... really...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes just like senate who voted 100% against it and most likey on the advice of scientists like the organization of state climatologists and the historical weather records.

Gee... I wonder what kind of people get senate positions... perhaps the patronage appointments are aren't big business... And maybe they consulted the two scientists that Bush and Exxon found to say that Global warming wasn't real... and somehow missed the other 99% of scientists in the world...

The oil companies say that global warming isn't real, exactly the same as the tobacco industry says smoking isn't harmful to your health... You'd have to be a complete moron to ignore the scientific community... but I guess you are....

Yes knife, figuratively speaking.

Without thought ??? Why would we join Bush in Iraq... The reasons for war have been completely discredited, but you choose to ignore that too I suppose....

[kimmy]

By stating that I'm against the GST, I'm not stating that we tax pensoin savings.  That's quite a stretch, and this type of argument is called a "straw man".  There are other methods of taxation... like the way they used to do it....  You're probably too young to remember Brian Mulroney, but before Mulroney, there was a manufacturers tax and a more progressive income tax... and no federal value-added-tax.

The MFT was a terrible idea. Why penalize Canadian manufacturers 13% when they're competing against foreign companies who have no such disadvantage? How could that possibly be a good idea?

As for the GST being regressive, pfff. Less wealthy Canadians spend a larger proportion of their income on food and rent-- items that are exempt from GST. Wealthier Canadians spend a higher proportion of their money on items that are not GST exempt.

-kimmy

{ps: aren't you going to thank me for not leading Canada into the the first Gulf War?}

[kimmy]

By stating that I'm against the GST, I'm not stating that we tax pensoin savings.  That's quite a stretch, and this type of argument is called a "straw man".  There are other methods of taxation... like the way they used to do it....  You're probably too young to remember Brian Mulroney, but before Mulroney, there was a manufacturers tax and a more progressive income tax... and no federal value-added-tax.

I just wanted to add, I'm hoping you can explain why you feel the GST is regressive while the MFT wasn't. Both take money out of the consumer's pocket when he buys something. The MFT's only benefit, from a consumer's point of view, is to give the consumer the chance to evade taxation by buying foreign-made products.

-k

[Cartman]

just wanted to add, I'm hoping you can explain why you feel the GST is regressive while the MFT wasn't. Both take money out of the consumer's pocket when he buys something. The MFT's only benefit, from a consumer's point of view, is to give the consumer the chance to evade taxation by buying foreign-made products.

Probably one of the only things I believed that came out of Mulroney's mouth is that the GST is simply obvious and therefore an honest tax, while the MST was not. Having said that, I think sales taxes hurt the economy and we should rely upon income taxes instead (becasue they slide).

[B. Max]

Chretien - Do Nothing PM

Signed the kyoto farce

Stuck a knife in the back of our closest ally

Kyoto a farce... You side with the brilliant scientist, George Bush on this one...

Stuck a knife... really...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes just like senate who voted 100% against it and most likey on the advice of scientists like the organization of state climatologists and the historical weather records.

Gee... I wonder what kind of people get senate positions... perhaps the patronage appointments are aren't big business... And maybe they consulted the two scientists that Bush and Exxon found to say that Global warming wasn't real... and somehow missed the other 99% of scientists in the world...

The oil companies say that global warming isn't real, exactly the same as the tobacco industry says smoking isn't harmful to your health... You'd have to be a complete moron to ignore the scientific community... but I guess you are....

Yes knife, figuratively speaking.

Without thought ??? Why would we join Bush in Iraq... The reasons for war have been completely discredited, but you choose to ignore that too I suppose....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course that's totally wrong. There is no majority of scientists who back global warming because it doesn't exist. There are the ones that clinton paid as long as they came up with the results he wanted and those UN one worlders the least credibale of all. If you have the proof of global warming put it up there. The reasons for war have not been discredited, the leftwing media have tried to cover them up and distort them. All pablum for the sheepeople who lost the ability to think for themselves. For the most part, the free ride entitlement sickle swinging crowd

[Cartman]

You know, I suspect that even the Conservatives on this board will agree with me that Chretien did something even if it was only something bad for Alberta.

I got a great idea for the next "nothing happened" thread. Let's argue about the obvious bias of a political movie that does not exist. Oh, better yet, let's argue about whether a non-existent MLW poster should be banned for trolling. No wait, the most provoking debate will be whether the 11th Canadian province has legitimate reasons to seperate from Canada.

[err]

Of course that's totally wrong. There is no majority of scientists who back global warming because it doesn't exist. There are the ones that clinton paid as long as they came up with the results he wanted and those UN one worlders the least credibale of all. If you have the proof of global warming put it up there. The reasons for war have not been discredited, the leftwing media have tried to cover them up and distort them. All pablum for the sheepeople who lost the ability to think for themselves. For the most part, the free ride entitlement sickle swinging crowd

Beam him up Scotty....

[August1991]

Come to think about it err, you are suggesting that we should tax savings - including pension contributions.  If a poor person (and his employer) contribute to a pension scheme, should that money be included in the person's taxable income?  (At present, the contribution is deducted from income and no income tax is paid on it.)

Typical August, starts talking before even finishing hearing what's being said. I have a sister-in-law like you... but that's another story...

By stating that I'm against the GST, I'm not stating that we tax pensoin savings. That's quite a stretch, and this type of argument is called a "straw man". There are other methods of taxation... like the way they used to do it.... You're probably too young to remember Brian Mulroney, but before Mulroney, there was a manufacturers tax and a more progressive income tax... and no federal value-added-tax.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And if you were my brother-in-law, I'd drink it...

err, to disagree with you, I won't use Kimmy's excellent point that GST doesn't cover food and rent - major expenses for poor people. I won't even use Kimmy's other excellent point that GST replaced the MST (which taxed Canadian products but not imported foreign products).

err, I won't even use the argument about the administrative cost of collecting a tax - the number of people a government must deal with, and potential fraud.

Instead, I'll make the obvious point that income tax takes money from people before they spend it. The GST takes money from people when they spend it. If a poor person manages to save money, through a pension scheme or otherwise, should they be penalized and taxed? Should a government tax savings?

You claim that I have introduced a strawman argument. I haven't. If the government taxed as you suggest, it would tax all income. It would tax money spent and money saved. The GST only taxes money spent.

Taxing savings is dumb. It makes countries poor and it hurts poor people.

Now then, if you want to raise taxes on rich people and lower taxes on poor people, we can discuss it. But let's not tax savings.

----

And err, thanks for the 13th error of intelligent people: The GST is a bad tax.

[Toro]

Taxing savings is dumb. It makes countries poor and it hurts poor people.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Taxing savings is about the single worst tax there is. It expropriates capital.

[newbie]

There is no majority of scientists who back global warming because it doesn't exist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try these guys: http://www.ucsusa.org

or these folks: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming....tent/index.html

how about here: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp

And for us Cannucks: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/climate_change/..._ecosystems.asp

I think you might have bought into ExxonMobile myths and disinformation. You can't fight the science though.

[Canuck E Stan]

August,

"Instead, I'll make the obvious point that income tax takes money from people before they spend it. The GST takes money from people when they spend it. If a poor person manages to save money, through a pension scheme or otherwise, should they be penalized and taxed? Should a government tax savings?

You claim that I have introduced a strawman argument. I haven't. If the government taxed as you suggest, it would tax all income. It would tax money spent and money saved. The GST only taxes money spent."

Excellent arguement for retaining the GST.

I've always believed a lot of people didn't realize that the GST was a substitution for another tax, the Manufacturer's Tax. They probably think that by getting rid of the GST it would mean life would be without any kind of tax.

I'm sure when Chretien was touting the end of the GST, people voting for him then, thought it would go back to the old tax. The old tax that wasn't disclosed on your purchase and you payed without acually knowing there was a tax.Seeing the GST in your face I think was what people hated.

The GST could be improved on a number of fronts beyond rent and food,removal of the tax for items like,books,children's clothing(especially when they grow like weeds),sanitary napkins and other items where people have limited options.

Tax on savings,would be a mistake. Figures released lately from the banks state Canadians don"t save money and are in the negative zone for savings.Placing a tax on what little people do save would expand that negativity even further.

[Riverwind]

I'm sure when Chretien was touting the end of the GST, people voting for him then, thought it would go back to the old tax. The old tax that wasn't disclosed on your purchase and you payed without acually knowing there was a tax.Seeing the GST in your face I think was what people hated.

If my recollection is correct, the Liberals wanted to bring in a harmonized VAT which be part of the advertised price of goods and not added on afterwards. In retrospect, Mulroney would have been smarter to make the tax hidden because it appears too many people have the niave attitude that if they don't know about a tax then they are not paying.

As someone once observed that "taxation is the art of plucking the most feathers with the least squawking". A visible GST causes way to much squawking.

[B. Max]

There is no majority of scientists who back global warming because it doesn't exist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try these guys: http://www.ucsusa.org

or these folks: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming....tent/index.html

how about here: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp

And for us Cannucks: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/climate_change/..._ecosystems.asp

I think you might have bought into ExxonMobile myths and disinformation. You can't fight the science though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The fact is those are all treehugger outfits with zero credibility and even the EPA has been caught falsifying data. You have bought into the UN treehugger scam to export jobs and wealth from industrialized countries while destorying their economies.

If that's not good enough take it over here http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewforu...c560cb6a92bb066 and they'll will straighten you out.

http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2002/15.html

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=291

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GB25Aa02.html

http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Calen/UCSscam.html

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/000253.html

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/green.htm

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11548

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../01/wglob01.xml

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/caruba092404.htm

http://www.john-daly.com/

[Argus]

And 3 successive majority governments. Hmmmm.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That doesn't say much for the voters of Ont.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't blame me. I never voted for him.

[Argus]

I did like him when he took that protestor out who got too close to him.  That was great.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that showed Chretien at his worst. First, he was angry and impatient with demonstrators. Chretien has never been a man who tolerated opposition very well. He ignored his RCMP bodyguards, charging out into the crowd like a runaway frieght train. The protestor, who came up to about mid chest on him, if I recall rightly, didn't so much 'get too close" as "not run away fast enough" from a charging Chretien. And Chretien grabbed him by the throat and flung him away, breaking his glasses.

Later, he blamed it all on the RCMP for not "protecting him" properly. The RCMP was foced to apologise, apparently for not being able to fly above the crowd he had waded into in order to get in front of him again and intercept protestors.

The RCMP also had to apologise for not seeing a break and enter in progress on crappy, out of date equipment which Chretien's wife had ordered turned away from the house becaus she was afraid she'd be spied on. And for not detecting him breaking in when the Chretiens insisted onleaving the alarm off downstairs.

Still, they were probably not half as irritated at having to apologise as the military was - for not being able to get him to the King of Jordan's funeral on time when they had actiually anticipated the need and had a plane all ready.

[Argus]

How can you even believe half of the shit you write? Does the GST not serve a purpose? The gulf war is not his shining moment either!

The gst is a Regressive tax... that means the opposite of Progressive, which most of you conservatives seem the hink our system is. A poor or middle class person lives cheque to cheque.... Paying GST on nearly everything they buy. A well-to-do person who can bank a portion of their cheque does not pay GST on that portion, and hence, are taxed at a lower rate.

Uhm, middle class people don't generally live cheque to cheque unless they're very bad at budgeting. I am entirely middle class, with a nice little bungalow I bought earlier in the year. At the present time I can bank almost half my pay.

Now what I bank is either going to be spent on something else, as in the big screen TV I bought last month - for cash (I don't like paying on credit), or it will go into my RRSPs, or into other investments for when I'm a doddering little old man - so the state doesn't have to support me.

So it's not like I'm escaping the GST

The pre-Mulroney taxation system was fairer.  The manufacturers sales tax, and more progressive income tax.

The MFT was the same as the GST except it exempted foreign goods instead of food. How was that more progressive?

[Argus]

A poor or middle class person lives cheque to cheque.... Paying GST on nearly everything they buy. A well-to-do person who can bank a portion of their cheque does not pay GST on that portion, and hence, are taxed at a lower rate.

Maybe, but the rich person will at least pay GST on the savings when the savings are spent (and why save if you'll never spend it).

Compare that with income tax and RRSPs. The rich person saves in RRSPs, avoids income tax now and won't pay income tax on it when the RRSP is cashed in. (They will pay GST though.)

RRSPs are not used by "rich people". They are largely used by the middle class, just about the only real tax writeoff most of the middle class has. And eventually you have to take the money out - presuming you live - and it is taxable as income at that time. You'll also be paying the GST on what you buy.

[Canuck E Stan]

"At the present time I can bank almost half my pay.

Now what I bank is either going to be spent on something else, as in the big screen TV I bought last month - for cash (I don't like paying on credit)"

If more people actually waited til they had "cash" before they made "toy" purchases there would probably be more savings. It's just to easy to spend when the credit card is in the wallet.Pay cash or pay when the bill comes, then the damn banks make nothing. I try to use your policy on paying too Argus.

On a secondary note Argus,

Please tell me that your job in government has nothing to do with being able to pay cash.

[newbie]

deleted

[newbie]

There is no majority of scientists who back global warming because it doesn't exist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try these guys: http://www.ucsusa.org

or these folks: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming....tent/index.html

how about here: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp

And for us Cannucks: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/climate_change/..._ecosystems.asp

I think you might have bought into ExxonMobile myths and disinformation. You can't fight the science though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The fact is those are all treehugger outfits with zero credibility and even the EPA has been caught falsifying data. You have bought into the UN treehugger scam to export jobs and wealth from industrialized countries while destorying their economies.

If that's not good enough take it over here http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewforu...c560cb6a92bb066 and they'll will straighten you out.

http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2002/15.html

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=291

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GB25Aa02.html

http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Calen/UCSscam.html

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/000253.html

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/green.htm

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11548

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../01/wglob01.xml

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/caruba092404.htm

http://www.john-daly.com/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I give up. If you buy into those "sources" there is nothing little more to add, except to say that folks will have to judge for themselves. I take my information from known and accredited scientists, not from bloggers, journalists, economists, or computer software experts.

[err]

Uhm, middle class people don't generally live cheque to cheque unless they're very bad at budgeting. I am entirely middle class, with a nice little bungalow I bought earlier in the year. At the present time I can bank almost half my pay.

Now what I bank is either going to be spent on something else, as in the big screen TV I bought last month - for cash (I don't like paying on credit), or it will go into my RRSPs, or into other investments for when I'm a doddering little old man - so the state doesn't have to support me.

So it's not like I'm escaping the GST

I congratulate you on your good position and prudent fiscal management. Many middle class citizens do live cheque to cheque however, especially if they have children... children who ski and play hockey.... but that's another matter.

The pre-Mulroney taxation system was fairer.  The manufacturers sales tax, and more progressive income tax.

The MFT was the same as the GST except it exempted foreign goods instead of food. How was that more progressive?

The Mulroney goverment found a great new way to distribute who paid how much tax. The GST allowed them to drop the progressiveness of the income tax system (to 3 levels) and reduce business taxes.

Really, only end consumers pay GST. Businesses get the GST they spend back. So this huge collection of taxes is just from Canadian consumers pockets... Business pays nothing... that's why they didn't fight it too hard....

How about a another perspective... We don't tax goods that we sell to foreigners... we only tax our own people.... We pay GST on stuff that we import, but we don't pay it on stuff that we export.... Canada loses taxes when we export, and Canada takes from Canadians when we import ....

[Montgomery Burns]

Now we're on to Chretien bashing. What's the matter Right; run out of current topics?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Awwww, perhaps you would be more comfortable in the US forum where you can bash President Bush for every single evil in this world.

[newbie]

Now we're on to Chretien bashing. What's the matter Right; run out of current topics?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Awwww, perhaps you would be more comfortable in the US forum where you can bash President Bush for every single evil in this world.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL, well if the shoe fits.

[Montgomery Burns]

You know, I suspect that even the Conservatives on this board will agree with me that Chretien did something even if it was only something bad for Alberta.

I got a great idea for the next "nothing happened" thread.  Let's argue about the obvious bias of a political movie that does not exist.  Oh, better yet, let's argue about whether a non-existent MLW poster should be banned for trolling.  No wait, the most provoking debate will be whether the 11th Canadian province has legitimate reasons to seperate from Canada.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is Cartman again demanding that someone who doesn't agree with his radical leftist views be "punted"?

Like I have said numerous times. the far left is frightening. They are not interested in opposing views at all.

No wonder so many of them support Saddam Hussein.