Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
If I'm following most of the justification for this deal, it's been:
- This is a great day, so shut up/stop ruining my vibe
- There are unnamed worse things this could be spent on, and named things like... an even more expensive arena
- It will have economic benefits beyond anything else the money could be spent on but there will never be any direct evidence of this so stop asking
- The money was earmarked for this so it was actually impossible for them not to spend even more of it on this
- This was inevitable, and it's actually your fault that it's so expensive now
- You'll get over it
- Flames stay
As I said last night, at $1.2b I would think there'd be more justification than various mixes of "shut up" and shoulder shrugs. But I'll be happy if the people excited about this promise never to complain about property taxes or the cost of things like hospitals, transit lines, or accessible community projects ever again.
That's definitely going to happen, right?
|
A lot of people don’t complain about property taxes
Taxes are meant to be used for things including services and infrastructure
Yes, the government has money earmarked for infrastructure. Not sure why that is a problem. Point is, if it’s already budgeted for, these aren’t new taxpayer dollars. It’s just the allocation of the earmarked dollars
There are obvious immediate economic benefits, it’s not like this is a sunk cost. In the near term, a bunch of that investment goes directly into the local labour force and businesses providing the materials and services. Money into the local economy. The government will also collect back the GST on the transactions, and income taxes for all the labourers, no?
I would expect the project will attract further private sector development
Let’s do a quick calculation - worst case scenario — say this is just a massive sunk cost and was all net new dollars they were asking for - then if the contribution would see me holding the bag equally with all Albertans
1.226 B / 4.5 million is 272 per Albertan
Over 35 years, that’s $7.78 a year
70 percent (which Notley said taxpayers are paying) of that is $5.44 per year
I personally make worse decisions with 5 bucks more than once a year.
(Anyone here ever bought a ticket to a Flames game? )
(Also, I’m sure there is someone on here complaining about it, that also just throws out their recyclables instead of going to the bottle depot.)
Meanwhile the Alberta government had higher than forecasted 76 billion (14 billion higher than the budgeted 62) in projected revenue in 2022-23
They have a 23 billion dollar capital plan this year covering many things and this is a line item, and I’m sure the capital spend is spread over a few years
I’m fine. I will not notice a thing in my day to day and expect most people won’t either. It will be much more of a high profile bitching contest than anything that torpedoes anyone’s way of life
Build a new stadium.
Maybe Taylor Swift will come here