[timun]

The problem with your attitude is that it's based on false premises. Restraint WAS shown; that's how the budget ended up where it ended up, and not higher.

You complain about mental health services funding being something the province should do. Sure, fine, but they very obviously don't do enough, and at the local level the City set aside some money for it. If you want to cut it, fine: it's a couple million dollars' worth of grants that get doled out mostly in little $80,000-$140,000 chunks to a couple dozen not-for-profit organizations offering mental health and addictions counselling services. It'll save you maybe 30¢ on your TIPP payments.

Now, here's ultimately why I disregard complaints like yours for the empty bluster they are: you think "there absolutely have to be areas here that can be trimmed back and no one would know the difference".

Wrong. There aren't. You cut something from the budget, you're going to notice. You're going to notice unresolved issues continuing to go unresolved, or you're going to notice previously resolved issues now going unresolved. It might not be noticed immediately, or even in the following year or two, but eventually the knock-on effects are going to show. And then what?



And then you'll be part of the chorus of whiners and complainers who decry the government for failing to "do something about it". How do I know? You already are. Witness this post in "Growing Retail Theft" thread:

Originally Posted by btimbit

Do you know what defunding the police actually means? If anything it would help, as then the police could actually focus on crime instead of also being forced to act as social workers and public health experts

Don't confuse it with the silly 'abolish the police' movement

Originally Posted by Slava

Sure, I agree with that over the long-term. In the short term though, you still have these social ills that are causing problems and chaos, and policing is the way to deal with them. It's distasteful, and I see that side, but you can't stop these things by standing there and saying "hey, I'm on your side and advocating for housing, rehabilitation and treatment programs, so can you just stop this rampage?!"

You acknowledge that theft (and other petty crime) is a growing problem to be dealt with. How? "Policing". Guess what Slava? That costs ####ing MONEY!

How 'bout this post in the "getting a little tired of the crack/meth heads" thread:

Originally Posted by Slava

Gimme a break. I grew up ridiculously poor and I've had exposure to poor people. The fact that I don't want to live next door to a camp were people live by a completely different set of rules and have entirely different lives as a result has nothing to do with my fear or dislike of poor people. It's the crime, virtual lawlessness, drug use and other factors that I don't want to be around.

And frankly, it's not being sheltered. I don't need exposure to that and neither does my family.

You want the "crime, virtual lawlessness, drug use and other factors" associated with drug-addled people living on the streets addressed. And yet in your post above there are three things you quickly thought of off the top of your head that could or ought to be cut:

1. mental health services
2. climate change initiatives
3. affordable housing

Guess what items 1) and 3) are for...?

















For getting rid of the drug-addled homeless people! Like, #### man, do you not see your own blatant hypocrisy here? You bitch and complain about these issues, the City steps up with funding to help deal with it... and then you complain about your ####ing taxes!


As such, frankly I don't respect your opinion on this, and other people's similar opinions, one bit. Not even one meagre iota. I kept pestering you to present cuts for consideration because people like you, and like the "Sane Six" councillors, are bereft of any actual plans. You counter, like Terry Wong, that it's not your job to find the savings: you just want savings to be found. And you don't want it to be from something you think people will notice. The "Sane Six" are just morally bankrupt shysters making empty platitudes about "finding savings" to gullible rubes because they think it'll buy 'em votes: they don't give a single, solitary #### about whether it'll do any good or not.


The truth is that the people whose job it is to come up with the budget, to go through things line item by line item, did. The people we elected whose jobs it is to approve the budget vigorously deliberated it two months ago. They weighed the pros and cons, and they settled on the 7.8% increase to strike as best a balance they could between 1) not funding things enough to meaningfully solve the problems that people like you are already bitching about, and 2) keeping the increase low enough that people like you won't bitch too hard about it. Those are "the tough decisions". They contemplated cuts, they contemplated allocation and re-allocation of all sorts of funding, and this is where it all shook out. Just because it didn't result in a lower increase than that, or a cut, does not mean that "tough decisions" were not made about it.


And, lest we all forget, you are among the worst on this forum for completely forgetting about tax cuts when they do happen. From page 6 of this very thread:

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Thinking you can run this city on 0% tax increases every year is just asinine.

I'm glad we got some progressive candidates who are committed to the things they ran on and funding the things they feel will make Calgary a better place to live.

Originally Posted by Slava

Oh I knew that would be the response, but it’s still my opinion. It’s a few percent from the city, a few from the province and the feds and I guess we can’t be unhappy with any of them. Of course, it was a few percent last year and the years before that, and as you all know it’s all coming out of the same wallet.

Originally Posted by timun

Property taxes went down last year, Slava...

Originally Posted by Slava

Well we should make up for that right away.

Jesus-####ing-Christ man: even when the taxes DO go down you act like a jackass about it!