Alberta, Taxes, and Socialism

[17to85]

abolishing the senate is a god damned stupid move. The upper house does serve a purpose, that's even completely ignoring how ******* impossible it would be to even try and abolish it. Here's the problem with senate reform, any kind of significant changes to the senate require changing the constitution, that require getting everyone, absolutely everyone together and agreeing to change the thing. They still haven't been able to get Quebec to agree to the thing in the first place, it's just too much of a quagmire to get into. The conservatives really did the best they could saying they would appoint elected senators. 

[sweep the leg]

 

 I want to see lower income taxes.  I'd prefer sales tax and user fees.  let me keep more of the money I earn and let me decide how much tax I will pay by how much I buy.

 

 

I completely agree with you on this point.

[sweep the leg]

 

 

income splitting isn't a bad idea either, it's a narrowly targeted tax break but I don't see an issue with that. Like the GST it's nice to see a government actually care about lowering the tax burden on the population. 

 

It's personal preference. I get the thinking behind income splitting, I just disagree. I think tax rates should be based on individuals, not households.

 

For GST, I think the benefit of lowering it for individuals is pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of lost revenue for the government.

[Mr Dee]

abolishing the senate is a god damned stupid move. The upper house does serve a purpose, that's even completely ignoring how ******* impossible it would be to even try and abolish it. Here's the problem with senate reform, any kind of significant changes to the senate require changing the constitution, that require getting everyone, absolutely everyone together and agreeing to change the thing. They still haven't been able to get Quebec to agree to the thing in the first place, it's just too much of a quagmire to get into. The conservatives really did the best they could saying they would appoint elected senators. 

 

 

Abolishing the senate was never a conservative goal, they wanted reform of the senate, specifically elected senators,and I do believe that Harper has appointed senators that provinces have actually elected so let's at least get the facts straight. 

 

 

I agree that the senate does serve a purpose…but not the way it's being done now.

BUT

 

The Cons didn't do the best they could in Senate reform because despite appointing Senators that the Provinces have elected, they still have "appointed" Senators whenever they see fit. They were not alone in that practice, and that practice must stop…for true Senate reform.

 

 

[Mr Dee]

People went way too far demonizing Harper in his early days. It's happening again with Trudeau, only with different talking points. People are scared of what's new in politics.

 

 

A few things I dislike about Harper:

- the new security bill seems unconstitutional and overreaching for what a government should be able to keep secret

- very little debate has been allowed in the house

- He wanted to abolish the senate, but has since appointed more of them than any other pm in history

- has very little use for the collectively bargained agreements with the Public servants that the government signed

- the Supreme Court has had to slap him down several times, then had a little fit after his choice for judge was disallowed

- lowering the GST and income splitting are bad ideas imo.

- his views on pot

- mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes

- wearing a Canada jersey instead of a Jets jersey

 

 I'll add:

 

- Parliamentary privilege was reached 3 times by his Gov. This is the 1st time for any democracy.

- wilfully violated the election spending limit in 2006

- Changed a $16 Billion dollar surplus into a record $56 Billion dollar deficit

- one of the Cons promises was more accountability - but Harper has shut down Parliament twice, once to stall on a vote, and then again to avoid a vote of non-confidence.

- the latest Budget was fudged by cuts to Health care, Coast Guard, dumping GM stock at a steep loss, raiding the the federal emergency fund and spending the UI surplus 

 

I could go on, because there is way more to Harper's bizarre politics, but I tire of these "politics" and so I'll stop.

 

I just wanted to point out that the man who represents Canada isn't all he's made out to be. Or maybe he is.

[kelownabomberfan]

 

 dumping GM stock at a steep loss,

 

 

I've seen a lot of people who I know have never owned a stock in their life crying about the sale of GM stock "at a steep loss".  When the government received that stock of GM, it was pretty much worthless.  Everyone was just hoping GM would survive.  The fact that the government was able to get $3.5 billion for a company's stock, that was essentially bankrupt, is a big win, and it's too bad people want to play partisan politics and criticize the government for realizing some value on something that could easily have been a complete zero.   Should the government have held on to the GM stock?  If they had, and GM had gone back in the dumper, then the same people would be crying about how they could have had $3.5 billion and pooped it away because they didn't sell when they had a buyer on the table.  The one thing I've noticed is that any information can be spun to the negative if put through different filters.

[Fatty Liver]

Oh and when I read about the negatives of the Security Bill, the criticism is really a lot of paranoia.  Is the government going to arrest people for staging legal anti-government protests and call them "terrorists?  Give me a break...

 

its really much ado about nothing to be honest.

Unless of course they list environmental groups such as the Sierra Club as eco-terrorists but then they would never do that...would they???

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawas-new-anti-terrorism-strategy-lists-eco-extremists-as-threats/article533522/

[17to85]

 

abolishing the senate is a god damned stupid move. The upper house does serve a purpose, that's even completely ignoring how ******* impossible it would be to even try and abolish it. Here's the problem with senate reform, any kind of significant changes to the senate require changing the constitution, that require getting everyone, absolutely everyone together and agreeing to change the thing. They still haven't been able to get Quebec to agree to the thing in the first place, it's just too much of a quagmire to get into. The conservatives really did the best they could saying they would appoint elected senators. 

 

 

Abolishing the senate was never a conservative goal, they wanted reform of the senate, specifically elected senators,and I do believe that Harper has appointed senators that provinces have actually elected so let's at least get the facts straight. 

 

 

I agree that the senate does serve a purpose…but not the way it's being done now.

BUT

 

The Cons didn't do the best they could in Senate reform because despite appointing Senators that the Provinces have elected, they still have "appointed" Senators whenever they see fit. They were not alone in that practice, and that practice must stop…for true Senate reform.

 

You can't just leave senate seats empty, they need to be filled and if the provinces can't be bothered to get off their asses and put senators on the ballot then what's to be done? 

[17to85]

 

 

 

income splitting isn't a bad idea either, it's a narrowly targeted tax break but I don't see an issue with that. Like the GST it's nice to see a government actually care about lowering the tax burden on the population. 

 

It's personal preference. I get the thinking behind income splitting, I just disagree. I think tax rates should be based on individuals, not households.

 

For GST, I think the benefit of lowering it for individuals is pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of lost revenue for the government.

 

but why? The whole idea behind marriage in this day and age is to combine things, why not income? Why should a house hold with two people making $60k pay less taxes than a household with one person making $120k and the other making nothing? 

 

as for income tax vs sales taxes, sales taxes are more regressive and hurt low income earners more than income tax. I'd rather see more progressive income tax than sales taxes or user fees. The real benefit of a sales tax for a revenue generating tax is that there's less loop holes to exploit so they're more likely to be collected. 

 

I very much disagree with the idea that the solution to a budget deficit is to just raise revenue though. I think getting spending under control is a better solution than simply raising taxes to balance the budget. 

[Noeller]

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

[17to85]

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

But like it or not it's a choice some people make. The other side of the coin is the dirty granola eating tree hugger idea that the government should raise all the kids out there so that they can be indoctrinated into the socialist manifesto from an early age. 

[sweep the leg]

 

 

 

 

income splitting isn't a bad idea either, it's a narrowly targeted tax break but I don't see an issue with that. Like the GST it's nice to see a government actually care about lowering the tax burden on the population. 

 

It's personal preference. I get the thinking behind income splitting, I just disagree. I think tax rates should be based on individuals, not households.

 

For GST, I think the benefit of lowering it for individuals is pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of lost revenue for the government.

 

but why? The whole idea behind marriage in this day and age is to combine things, why not income? Why should a house hold with two people making $60k pay less taxes than a household with one person making $120k and the other making nothing? 

 

 

Until my paycheque shows more than just my name on it, it's individual income.

 

Why should somebody making $120k, with a wife also making $120k, have to pay more taxes than another guy making $120k, but whose wife chose to stay home with the kids? It's an unnecessary tax break for people the Conservatives see as being part of their base.

[17to85]

 

 

 

 

 

income splitting isn't a bad idea either, it's a narrowly targeted tax break but I don't see an issue with that. Like the GST it's nice to see a government actually care about lowering the tax burden on the population. 

 

It's personal preference. I get the thinking behind income splitting, I just disagree. I think tax rates should be based on individuals, not households.

 

For GST, I think the benefit of lowering it for individuals is pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of lost revenue for the government.

 

but why? The whole idea behind marriage in this day and age is to combine things, why not income? Why should a house hold with two people making $60k pay less taxes than a household with one person making $120k and the other making nothing? 

 

 

Until my paycheque shows more than just my name on it, it's individual income.

 

Why should somebody making $120k, with a wife also making $120k, have to pay more taxes than another guy making $120k, but whose wife chose to stay home with the kids? It's an unnecessary tax break for people the Conservatives see as being part of their base.

 

until you go to get a divorce and your wife gets half of it. That's the whole point of a marriage, it's two separate entities combining to be one entity. Income splitting just makes sense. two people making 120k should be paying more than one person making 120k and the other staying home because 240k is more than 120k. Come on Prentice, the math isn't that hard. There are limits on how much can be split so it's not a super rich tax break, the people who benefit the most are the middle class with one person working and the other not. It's a narrow focus but it's not a bad thing at all. The left only likes to ***** about it cause it is a tax cut and it is a revenue loss and they hate giving back to the people. They believe the people don't know how to take care of themselves and the government needs to do it for them. 

[sweep the leg]

 

. two people making 120k should be paying more than one person making 120k and the other staying home because 240k is more than 120k. Come on Prentice, the math isn't that hard.

 

.

 

This is just stupid. I meant individually, not cumulatively. That should have been obvious.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

 

 

income splitting isn't a bad idea either, it's a narrowly targeted tax break but I don't see an issue with that. Like the GST it's nice to see a government actually care about lowering the tax burden on the population. 

 

It's personal preference. I get the thinking behind income splitting, I just disagree. I think tax rates should be based on individuals, not households.

 

For GST, I think the benefit of lowering it for individuals is pretty insignificant in comparison to the cost of lost revenue for the government.

 

This is my thinking as well.

 

As for Senate, I'd be happy with an elected senate.  Every government uses it to stack their people and award jobs.  And every government will continue to do so.  Why are they not elected?

[basslicker]

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

You're saying someone staying home to raise kids is a bad thing?

My wife would love to able to stay home and do 'mommie things'

Females are the natural caregivers And they're better at it. No career is more important than raising responsible children. And if it's dad who stays home, that works too.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

But like it or not it's a choice some people make. The other side of the coin is the dirty granola eating tree hugger idea that the government should raise all the kids out there so that they can be indoctrinated into the socialist manifesto from an early age. 

 

Exactly.  I dont believe that is the Cons position whatsoever.  They just arent punishing women (or men) for staying at home and raising a family. 

[Mr Dee]

 

 

 dumping GM stock at a steep loss,

 

 

I've seen a lot of people who I know have never owned a stock in their life crying about the sale of GM stock "at a steep loss".  When the government received that stock of GM, it was pretty much worthless.  Everyone was just hoping GM would survive.  The fact that the government was able to get $3.5 billion for a company's stock, that was essentially bankrupt, is a big win, and it's too bad people want to play partisan politics and criticize the government for realizing some value on something that could easily have been a complete zero.   Should the government have held on to the GM stock?  If they had, and GM had gone back in the dumper, then the same people would be crying about how they could have had $3.5 billion and pooped it away because they didn't sell when they had a buyer on the table.  The one thing I've noticed is that any information can be spun to the negative if put through different filters.

 

 

I don't object to our Gov. selling stock of any company…at the right time.

I just don't necessarily consider "the right time" being when you're balancing the budget.

Could be a coincidence…but I doubt it.

 

 

 

abolishing the senate is a god damned stupid move. The upper house does serve a purpose, that's even completely ignoring how ******* impossible it would be to even try and abolish it. Here's the problem with senate reform, any kind of significant changes to the senate require changing the constitution, that require getting everyone, absolutely everyone together and agreeing to change the thing. They still haven't been able to get Quebec to agree to the thing in the first place, it's just too much of a quagmire to get into. The conservatives really did the best they could saying they would appoint elected senators. 

 

 

Abolishing the senate was never a conservative goal, they wanted reform of the senate, specifically elected senators,and I do believe that Harper has appointed senators that provinces have actually elected so let's at least get the facts straight. 

 

 

I agree that the senate does serve a purpose…but not the way it's being done now.

BUT

 

The Cons didn't do the best they could in Senate reform because despite appointing Senators that the Provinces have elected, they still have "appointed" Senators whenever they see fit. They were not alone in that practice, and that practice must stop…for true Senate reform.

 

You can't just leave senate seats empty, they need to be filled and if the provinces can't be bothered to get off their asses and put senators on the ballot then what's to be done? 

 

 

Actually you can leave the seats unfilled if you create and follow a plan to minimize the amount of seats that would represent true Senate reform. You don't "need" that many Senators.

It would take work, but if you're true to your words...

[max power]

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

 

Sometimes I wonder how we've had the NDP in power for so long in this province... then I read threads like this and see opinions like these and it all starts to make sense.

 

Otherwise intelligent people who think there's a Conservative "hidden agenda" to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And as if somehow it's a bad thing for more women to be able to be stay at home moms. 

[johnzo]

People went way too far demonizing Harper in his early days. It's happening again with Trudeau, only with different talking points. People are scared of what's new in politics.

A few things I dislike about Harper:

- the new security bill seems unconstitutional and overreaching for what a government should be able to keep secret

- very little debate has been allowed in the house

- He wanted to abolish the senate, but has since appointed more of them than any other pm in history

- has very little use for the collectively bargained agreements with the Public servants that the government signed

- the Supreme Court has had to slap him down several times, then had a little fit after his choice for judge was disallowed

- lowering the GST and income splitting are bad ideas imo.

- his views on pot

- mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes

- wearing a Canada jersey instead of a Jets jersey

I'll add:

- Parliamentary privilege was reached 3 times by his Gov. This is the 1st time for any democracy.

- wilfully violated the election spending limit in 2006

- Changed a $16 Billion dollar surplus into a record $56 Billion dollar deficit

- one of the Cons promises was more accountability - but Harper has shut down Parliament twice, once to stall on a vote, and then again to avoid a vote of non-confidence.

- the latest Budget was fudged by cuts to Health care, Coast Guard, dumping GM stock at a steep loss, raiding the the federal emergency fund and spending the UI surplus

I could go on, because there is way more to Harper's bizarre politics, but I tire of these "politics" and so I'll stop.

I just wanted to point out that the man who represents Canada isn't all he's made out to be. Or maybe he is.

I'll add "the muzzling of government scientists" to Harper's rap sheet.

Scientific work shouldn't flow through the PMO. Science is not politics or public relations.

[Jaxon]

I'm in favour of income splitting.   My wife chose to stay home with our kids until they were school aged, and then chose to go back to work.  She's highly educated, very intelligent, hard working, and committed to our marriage and our kids (as am I).

 

At the time we had many choices to make, but made them for the benefit of our kids.   I have a very good income, but for several years it was our only source of funds, so we had to sacrifice some things.   I always thought it unjust that we, as a family, paid higher marginal tax rates than other families with similar total income.

 

One parent staying home and one working costs the government less than 2 working because we don't consume subsidized daycare dollars. 

[kelownabomberfan]

 

I'll add "the muzzling of government scientists" to Harper's rap sheet.

Scientific work shouldn't flow through the PMO. Science is not politics or public relations.

 

 

I looked into this and from what I could read, this whole mantra that the government was "muzzling scientists" was a bunch of alarmist BS, much like the alarmist BS being spread about Bill C-51.  Is the government really "muzzling" scientists?  No.  Not really.  It's amazing how a soundbite these days gets into the public mainstream and then is repeated as gospel over and over again.  Today all I see are idiots posting "#Harperisabigot" everywhere. Just ridiculous.  These people truly are their own worst enemy.

 

 

However, according to at least one media relations expert, the Harper government’s PR strategy is simply prudent with a 24/7 media cycle. 

"As opposed to what most people would think, the reality is that it takes a while to gather all the communications pieces in a puzzle," Matt Wilcox of the Wilcox Group said in an email exchange. 

"One scientist may not know the bigger picture or have all the facts, or they may have a particular focus which is not relevant to today’s story. Or worse, they are off-topic or so specific that it doesn’t give the full answer to educate."

Wilcox adds that it behooves any organization, government or otherwise, to put out measured and developed responses.

"No matter what organization you are in, there should be no surprises. Not easy to do in today’s 24/7, [where] everyone communicates with every social media tool available to them," he said.

"Politics aside, no one should knee-jerk react to anything unless there is solid data behind the answer. It is not about secrets … it is about giving a full and in-depth answer to the question. And most questions don’t have a solid-pat, easy answer."

In other words, the government wants to ensure that there aren’t false or multiple message being shared to media. 

 

As for the Tories, they say they are being transparent in regard to science.  

"Canadian federal departments and agencies produce over 4,000 science publications every year," Minister of State for Science and Technology Ed Holder said in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Environment Canada fielded nearly 2,500 media inquiries and published about 700 peer-reviewed articles this past year. Fisheries and Oceans Canada … fielded 1,600 media inquiries and published 500 peer reviewed articles last year."

"When it comes to science and technology, this is side of the House where we’re interested in facts."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/myth-or-fact-is-the-harper-government-really-muzzling-203405672.html

[Jaxon]

On income splitting potential, it is quite wide spread, and the number of stay at home fathers is growing:

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2011, there were 501,000 families in Canada which had one employed parent and one "stay-at-home" parent

 

 

Fathers in Canada | June 2013 | www.vanierinstitute.ca

© Vanier Institute of the Family

 

The percentage of single earner families that had a "stay-at-home" father was:

1% in 1976

12% in 2011

 

SOURCE: Statistics Canada (2012). Father’s Day… By the Numbers. Ottawa. Accessed May 20, 2013.

http://www42.statcan.gc.ca/smr08/2012/smr08_165_2012-eng.htm

[Fraser]

I get I'm not in their target demographic but some tax breaks for single people would be nice at some point

[johnzo]

I'll add "the muzzling of government scientists" to Harper's rap sheet.

Scientific work shouldn't flow through the PMO. Science is not politics or public relations.

I looked into this and from what I could read, this whole mantra that the government was "muzzling scientists" was a bunch of alarmist BS, much like the alarmist BS being spread about Bill C-51. Is the government really "muzzling" scientists? No. Not really. It's amazing how a soundbite these days gets into the public mainstream and then is repeated as gospel over and over again. Today all I see are idiots posting "#Harperisabigot" everywhere. Just ridiculous. These people truly are their own worst enemy.

However, according to at least one media relations expert, the Harper government’s PR strategy is simply prudent with a 24/7 media cycle.

"As opposed to what most people would think, the reality is that it takes a while to gather all the communications pieces in a puzzle," Matt Wilcox of the Wilcox Group said in an email exchange.

"One scientist may not know the bigger picture or have all the facts, or they may have a particular focus which is not relevant to today’s story. Or worse, they are off-topic or so specific that it doesn’t give the full answer to educate."

Wilcox adds that it behooves any organization, government or otherwise, to put out measured and developed responses.

"No matter what organization you are in, there should be no surprises. Not easy to do in today’s 24/7, [where] everyone communicates with every social media tool available to them," he said.

"Politics aside, no one should knee-jerk react to anything unless there is solid data behind the answer. It is not about secrets … it is about giving a full and in-depth answer to the question. And most questions don’t have a solid-pat, easy answer."

In other words, the government wants to ensure that there aren’t false or multiple message being shared to media.

As for the Tories, they say they are being transparent in regard to science.

"Canadian federal departments and agencies produce over 4,000 science publications every year," Minister of State for Science and Technology Ed Holder said in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Environment Canada fielded nearly 2,500 media inquiries and published about 700 peer-reviewed articles this past year. Fisheries and Oceans Canada … fielded 1,600 media inquiries and published 500 peer reviewed articles last year."

"When it comes to science and technology, this is side of the House where we’re interested in facts."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/myth-or-fact-is-the-harper-government-really-muzzling-203405672.html

"At least one media relations expert" ... now that is some unimpeachable sourcing, man. Rock solid.

Why didn't you copy in the first half of the article, that talks about a study that shows that Canadian federal scientists are, in fact, less free to talk about their work than American scientists are?