Quote:
Originally Posted by Red
Where does the 7B amount come from? Why so much? How are we to justify it, we don't know where this cash is going.
The government is wasting money, that's not a revelation to anyone, I get that and I get that some is unavoidable. But when does it end? All we hear is let's pay up this time and we will be smarter next time, We never get smarter, we keep doing the same silly stuff. Same government, same mistakes.
And we also get that we have more people here to support, more roads etc, but does anyone ask where the revenues coming from all these new homes, new residents/taxpayers go? Each person moving here pays taxes. That is supposed to be a good thing. This is what every city wants, people moving in. Why is it that all we hear is how bad it is etc and how it has to cost everyone else more money? And we just blindly accept it. Time to start asking tough questions.
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The mistake they have made is a lot less what they're spending on, than how we're dependent on a volatile resource for base operating revenue - enabling artificially low tax rates. Again, yeah let's look for more efficiency, let's look at reasonably reining in salaries through a variety of ways. But none of that closes that $7 billion deficit.
Why $7 billion? Where does that come from? Simply reading the budget. There aren't that many sources of revenue. Corporate taxes, personal income taxes, education property tax, investments, transfers, various user fees and....non renewable resource revenue, especially royalties.
In other provinces, they simply don't have that last revenue line item (or at least have a lot less), so they use taxes and user fees to gain the revenue they require to run the province (some rely more on transfers). Here, we have lower corporate, personal and property taxes because our budget is propped up by royalties. When they largely disappear as they have this year, suddenly those low taxes aren't enough to pay for services.
In 2012 this was the Province's Revenue Mix:
Every $1 drop in oil over a year costs the treasury $215 million. We're at $45 now, versus a forecasted $95. Drop in the dollar somewhat offsets this loss.
http://www.alberta.ca/budget101.cfm
The premier in his words this morning on the matter:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/popupau...Ids=2648060765