[GGG]

Originally Posted by Locke

If anything it speaks to Nenshi's disapproval of the fact that Government agencies dont receive a Carbon Tax exemption.

His disapproval, in my opinion, makes a lot of sense. At the moment the NDP are telling us that we have to reduce our carbon footprint and they're going to kick us in our wallets in order to accomplish their goal. But at the same time they're telling us that the difference is going to be so small we wont even notice.

So I dont exactly know what method they are attempting to use to modify our behaviour but if its 'confusion' it may not be all that effective.

You see a lot of people complaining about having to heat their homes and fuel their cars and the increased costs involved in that, but think about the same facts when you're running a school district.

Sure the NDP claim that our total outlay due to the Carbon tax is going to be ~$100-$500 a year per family and we can take this number at face value or call it horse-hockey or whatever, but take whatever equivalent value you want and multiply it by what the City has to pay, or the Calgary School Board and you find that this little multiplier is just that, a multiplier.

What you find at the end of the day is that tax revenue decreases due to fewer oil royalties, okay they've increased taxes to sort of make up for that a little bit.

But then the Government has to run schools and hospitals which use an astonishing amount of power. The Government has now artificially made that power more expensive and as such these institutions are spending more of their budgets on basic necessities like keeping the furnaces running and the lights on, and while those budgets are what they are we cannot forget that, at source, fewer dollars are coming through the door.

That little bastard law of diminishing returns.

Thats okay though, we cant inconvenience the teachers and nurses so ol' Orange will just charge it to the card.

And I dont mean that in any way as a slight to teachers or nurses, if anything they should be angry as hell, more than most, because now more of their operating budgets dont go to help fund and supply the front line staff, you know, the people that tend to do most of the work and provide most of the value?

Now they're consuming more of their budgets on Power and heat and fuel.

Make basic necessities more expensive.

Seems like a brilliant plan for improving our health and educational services.

I think that schools are excellent targets where revenue neutral policy would be great. Schools and municipalities should absolutely pay the carbon tax. Their budgets should have been increase by the amount of tax paid. This then incentivizes these large consumers of gas to implement changes to improve efficiency. The whole carbon tax thing works if it's revenue neutral and not wasted on "green initiatives"