[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The money has to come from somewhere. Why do you assume every employer earns so much profit that they can pay DB to all of their employees? Do you think BestBuy or London Drugs can just take on hundreds of millions more in liabilities in a retail climate where former retail giants like Sears are going bankrupt? How about your local pizza joint, liquor store, or landscaping company? Can they just jack up prices by 30 per cent to pay everyone better and provide them with 30 year guaranteed pensions?

It’s not as if these employers are offering DC pension plans to their employees either. Your questions require more data to fairly answer as you can’t claim each business would need to raise their prices by x amount without knowing what their current profit margins are, even you’d admit that comparing a major corporation like Best Buy to a local pizza place or landscaping company is disingenuous given the context. I’ll say this much though, I’d be willing to bet that in the overwhelming majority of cases these businesses could pay their employees more, maybe not 30%, but that’s an arbitrary figure anyways.

Then there’s the skewed notion of who’s wealthy. When I hear someone who earns $90k (likely married to another person who earns $80-120k) say the wealthy should pay more I just have to chuckle. You are the wealthy. You’re one of the winners of the modern economy. Defending your privileges as sticking up for the common man is self-serving.

Why are you attacking those people when they may be in favour of paying higher taxes themselves? Also, a household income of $200k, while definitely an above average household income, are still likely a family that has to rely on working everyday to maintain what they have. Whether that be running a small business or being employed they are not the “winners” of this economy, they’re generally people who have to work for what they have. The truly wealthy winners of the modern economy are the business owners who keep making more money without lifting a finger except to lobby for lower taxes while finding new and exciting ways to make sure the working class people who they employ and who buy their products can’t keep up with the pace.

If we want to sustain our current programs and services (never mind improve them) everyone will have to pay more. So a GST/PST of 15-20 per cent. Higher income taxes across the board. And increased retirement age. For everyone.

I’ll give you credit, you really do your best to try and convince people that what will actually help them in the long run is somehow going to be bad for them. As much as I don’t think a PST should be the first option, it’s interesting to watch you use it as a scare tactic when the price for most goods that would be exempt has already gone up almost that much in the last year and people are stuck paying for the increase as is without any gain. Meaning capacity was already there at least to some degree to do the things you’re trying to convince us that we wouldn’t be able to handle, and yet you’ve been making these types of statements on this board for about as long as I can remember. I guess you prefer to just continue kicking the can down the road. Oh well.