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opendoor · 05-28-2024, 09:45 PM

I'm sure these have significant drawbacks that I'm not thinking of, but it's worth a shot:

Housing:

-Increase the inclusion rate for capital gains on residential housing to 100%. Low risk-free returns over the last 20 years have led to real estate investors accepting terrible returns for real estate, which inherently drives the price of housing up. Some will even accept a cash flow negative situation on the assumption that the price will rise dramatically. By reducing the anticipated return for investors, there should be less upward pressure on prices due to investors/speculators. The utility of housing should drive sale prices, not cap rates. And if necessary, create a partial carve out for pre-construction purposes. Sometimes investors are needed to make multi-unit projects viable, so you wouldn't necessarily want to eliminate them.

-Large increase in investment in purpose-built rental stock. Offer significant tax breaks for construction of purpose-built rental units and/or get back into government-funded rental housing like we saw in the 1960s and 1970s.

-Strongly incentivize reduction in red tape for building housing. For most things I'm of the opposite opinion and think that strong regulations are important, but some of the timelines and requirements for getting a building permit are downright ridiculous. All they do is add significant cost and time, creating barriers to affordable housing. BC is starting something interesting that might help, where they're standardizing building permits and requirements across jurisdictions while automating things like checking for application completeness and building code compliance. Obviously that can only do so much, so there also needs to be significant other initiatives.

Taxes/Deficit reduction:

-Dramatically scale back OAS benefits for high earners and high net worth individuals. Currently, a couple earning $175K in retirement still get full OAS benefits, and they're not fully clawed back on a 2-person household until they're earning nearly $300K. I would significantly lower both thresholds. I'd also institute a clawback on people with significant assets. Might be easier said than done, but there's zero reason why someone sitting on millions of dollars in money should be getting full OAS benefits just because they keep their income under $90K a year.

Healthcare:

-Introduce payroll taxes that are devoted entirely to funding healthcare. Canada's total payroll taxes are about 10% of gross earnings, whereas most European countries are in the 20-30% range to fund their superior healthcare systems. I wouldn't go nearly that high, as we have to compete with the US, but there's no reason we couldn't have a modest one that's paid by employers and employees.

-Significantly increase the number of available spots for doctors and nurses in school. Also subsidize them more heavily, but make the subsidy contingent on them remaining in Canada for a period of time after graduation (say 10 years). Healthcare professionals might not like it because it'd drive down their pay, but there's no reason why we should be paying 50-100% more than what many European countries are paying.

-Explore the possibility of a different model for hospitals. Some countries have non-profits run hospitals and they generally have more efficient delivery. Who knows if this would work in Canada, but it might be worth running some pilot projects.

05-28-2024, 09:45 PM	#78
opendoor Franchise Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Exp:	I'm sure these have significant drawbacks that I'm not thinking of, but it's worth a shot: Housing: -Increase the inclusion rate for capital gains on residential housing to 100%. Low risk-free returns over the last 20 years have led to real estate investors accepting terrible returns for real estate, which inherently drives the price of housing up. Some will even accept a cash flow negative situation on the assumption that the price will rise dramatically. By reducing the anticipated return for investors, there should be less upward pressure on prices due to investors/speculators. The utility of housing should drive sale prices, not cap rates. And if necessary, create a partial carve out for pre-construction purposes. Sometimes investors are needed to make multi-unit projects viable, so you wouldn't necessarily want to eliminate them. -Large increase in investment in purpose-built rental stock. Offer significant tax breaks for construction of purpose-built rental units and/or get back into government-funded rental housing like we saw in the 1960s and 1970s. -Strongly incentivize reduction in red tape for building housing. For most things I'm of the opposite opinion and think that strong regulations are important, but some of the timelines and requirements for getting a building permit are downright ridiculous. All they do is add significant cost and time, creating barriers to affordable housing. BC is starting something interesting that might help, where they're standardizing building permits and requirements across jurisdictions while automating things like checking for application completeness and building code compliance. Obviously that can only do so much, so there also needs to be significant other initiatives. Taxes/Deficit reduction: -Dramatically scale back OAS benefits for high earners and high net worth individuals. Currently, a couple earning $175K in retirement still get full OAS benefits, and they're not fully clawed back on a 2-person household until they're earning nearly $300K. I would significantly lower both thresholds. I'd also institute a clawback on people with significant assets. Might be easier said than done, but there's zero reason why someone sitting on millions of dollars in money should be getting full OAS benefits just because they keep their income under $90K a year. Healthcare: -Introduce payroll taxes that are devoted entirely to funding healthcare. Canada's total payroll taxes are about 10% of gross earnings, whereas most European countries are in the 20-30% range to fund their superior healthcare systems. I wouldn't go nearly that high, as we have to compete with the US, but there's no reason we couldn't have a modest one that's paid by employers and employees. -Significantly increase the number of available spots for doctors and nurses in school. Also subsidize them more heavily, but make the subsidy contingent on them remaining in Canada for a period of time after graduation (say 10 years). Healthcare professionals might not like it because it'd drive down their pay, but there's no reason why we should be paying 50-100% more than what many European countries are paying. -Explore the possibility of a different model for hospitals. Some countries have non-profits run hospitals and they generally have more efficient delivery. Who knows if this would work in Canada, but it might be worth running some pilot projects.