April 23 2012: Alberta Provincial Election

[Jacks]

They said on the radio this morning that the WR has a 17 point lead?
Can't find the poll online. Hard to think they can maintain those numbers. They also said WR is polling 50% in Calgary.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by slava

^ really a lot of this is just pure right-wing fear mongering though. Governments can have debts, and frankly budgeting for the government is not anywhere near the same as budgeting for a household. I'm really tired of that line of though; its wrong and there are marked differences:

1. The government can not only go into debt, but here's an enormous difference for you; if they choose the government might literally never pay the debt back. There's honestly not a huge issue with that. We all expect (regardless of political spectrum) that the province will be here in 100 years, right? They aren't facing the deadlines of a normal household and likewise the constraints regarding debt repayment aren't there either.

2. Governments have things such as issuing bonds that they can take advantage of, or they can raise taxes. The ability to raise taxes and essentially generate revenue willingly is not equal to a household and certainly affords another opportunity to deal with financial obligations that households do not have. In fact part of the credit rating for a government is the size of that tax base and what kind of burdens are already there.

Anyway, i could write a lot more, and doubtless a full book could be written. Its just not true though.

I better clarify right away that i'm not advocating for a government to borrow huge amounts of money and never pay them back. I'm just pointing out an obvious and often ignored reality of governing as opposed to the average guy that is so often brought up.

Long story short, the reason that the governments budget the way they do is because they can.

piigs?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by tete

Isn't that just a fancy word for "triage" which they already should be doing in emerg?

Well its for the obvious issues. You walk in and know the exact problem and get fast tracked, i.e. broken arm. Everyone knows what the problem is, but otherwise you still have to sit there.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Flickered Flame

And the WRA announces shorter waits time today as well.
http://www.wildrose.ca/leader/provid...en-its-needed/

Wow, that's just so silly. Rather than try to solve the problem in the first place they're going to throw money at it.

[IntenseFan]

Originally Posted by Slava

^ Really a lot of this is just pure right-wing fear mongering though. Governments can have debts, and frankly budgeting for the government is not anywhere near the same as budgeting for a household. I'm really tired of that line of though; its wrong and there are marked differences:

1. The government can not only go into debt, but here's an enormous difference for you; if they choose the government might literally never pay the debt back. There's honestly not a huge issue with that. We all expect (regardless of political spectrum) that the province will be here in 100 years, right? They aren't facing the deadlines of a normal household and likewise the constraints regarding debt repayment aren't there either.

...

Long story short, the reason that the governments budget the way they do is because they can.

I'm not trying to fear monger Slava. In fact I agree with much of the above. If the government chooses to fund its debt by making interest payments for a hundred years or even to practically the end of time, they can indeed do that. It is very different than a household.

I have little problem if 10-15 cents on every tax dollar collected every year were used in such a manner (ideally less of course).

Where it becomes a problem is when a larger and larger portion of the budget is used to fund prior borrowings. Yes the government can take practically forever to pay it all back. But the more they borrow the more they have to pay in interest and when that starts to be at a level of 20 or 30 cents for every tax dollar that gets to be a huge problem.

Fighting any social problem by borrowing more and more every year, including the infrastructure deficit, or even other domestic issues like healthcare costs, will eventually lead us there.

Again, I have to reiterate that sometimes deficit financing is appropriate. But not to my mind during growth years and not so much that we can't recover from it short term.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by IntenseFan

Where it becomes a problem is when a larger and larger portion of the budget is used to fund prior borrowings. Yes the government can take practically forever to pay it all back. But the more they borrow the more they have to pay in interest and when that starts to be at a level of 20 or 30 cents for every tax dollar that gets to be a huge problem.

Sure, but no one is advocating for that. The entire deficit at this point is a small percentage of the total budget; its far from unserviceable and yet we hear this line about how we're the next Greece.

Basically the extremists on this issue are extrapolating this years minor deficit and saying that if it continues like that forever we'll eventually run out of money. This might be true, but quite simply the plan isn't to pursue this course of action forever, for any of the parties in the election.

[IntenseFan]

^ Hang on. We've had a deficit every year since the downturn. Are we the next Greece? Not by any means. Should we be returning to balanced budgets now that the crisis is passed? Absolutely.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by IntenseFan

^ Hang on. We've had a deficit every year since the downturn. Are we the next Greece? Not by any means. Should we be returning to balanced budgets now that the crisis is passed? Absolutely.

Sure, but lets not get too crazy here. The deficit this year is $800M and frankly that is no big deal. Every party, regardless of where they sit on the spectrum projects surplus budgets over the next few years.

In that case spending what is necessary today to make sure that the services are provided is both responsible and sustainable. Cutting more than we need to isn't fiscally responsible, its pure ideology plain and simple.

[CaptainCrunch]

[Jacks]

The dog doesn't care that there is a campaign going on

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by DigitalCarpenter

As a parent with 2 small children the thing you are forgetting is that there is no "my money" in the household. There is "family" money. Everything for the kids (food, shelter, clothing) is paid out of this family money and anything the kids would generate would go back into the same pot and be spent on the kids as per usual.

You seem to forget that parents are taking on the financial burden of raising new tax payers and yes that means they should get more of the pot from this benefit as it is a tiny drop in the bucket required to raise said future taxpaying citizens (I will pay 18k this year for daily child care alone).

And people against the money are forgetting that the majority of families do not make a combined income of 100k a year, this money could represent a lot of things, say sending their kid to hockey one year when they could not afford it, or go on a vacation or do whatever they normally would not be able to budget for.

I would bet that the people who are against this policy are people who can afford to be.

I agree with most of your post, except the bolded part.

I am against this policy, unless it comes tied to an equal or larger amount of funds being put directly into infrastructure. I certainly don't have a household income of 100k since my wife is a stay at home mom, and I am a student working at an entry level position in my field. I can use this money, but I do realize that I also use the heath care system, the roads, transit system etc in this province and realize they are not free, or sufficient for our current needs.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Slava

Wow, that's just so silly. Rather than try to solve the problem in the first place they're going to throw money at it.

News Flash: PCs new Fast-Track Emergency Room won't result in faster service unless they hire more people and spend a lot more money.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Fire

News Flash: PCs new Fast-Track Emergency Room won't result in faster service unless they hire more people and spend a lot more money.

News Flash: Nothing short of putting money into primary health care and keeping people healthy will result in faster service regardless of how many more people they hire. If the Wildrose were to pledge money towards acions that would keep people out of Emergency Rooms.

Also willfully ignoring the Canada Health Act could cost Alberta billions in terms of Federal dollars for health care as a penalty for violating the CHA. Sorry but that is just awful fiscal management given the current climate. The fast track thing is stupid and just puts a new name on something that already exists within the hospitals, but I have question about the Wildrose initiatives and how much they would cost Alberta in the long run.

[Top Shelf]

The Calgary Northwest PC candidate Sandra Jensen stopped by the house today. I think she has my vote, and not just because her MILF levels were off the charts.

[troutman]

^ Did she used to be an anchor on CITY?

http://emilyleedham.wordpress.com/20...ry-north-west/

Jansen embarked on a 25 year career in journalism, which would include a prestigious 10 year run as a CTV Newsnet anchor in Toronto.

In 2007, Jansen returned home to northwest Calgary . . . It wasn’t too long before Jansen was back in the anchor’s chair, hosting the evening news for CityTV in Calgary

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Top Shelf

The Calgary Northwest PC candidate Sandra Jensen stopped by the house today. I think she has my vote, and not just because her MILF levels were off the charts.

Former Calgary 7 News anchor?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

News Flash: Nothing short of putting money into primary health care and keeping people healthy will result in faster service regardless of how many more people they hire. If the Wildrose were to pledge money towards acions that would keep people out of Emergency Rooms.

Also willfully ignoring the Canada Health Act could cost Alberta billions in terms of Federal dollars for health care as a penalty for violating the CHA. Sorry but that is just awful fiscal management given the current climate. The fast track thing is stupid and just puts a new name on something that already exists within the hospitals, but I have question about the Wildrose initiatives and how much they would cost Alberta in the long run.

Ah right. The standard 'need to throw more money at the problem in order to solve it' response.

Alberta and Canada won't ever solve our health care problem until we go to the two-tier European style system.

[RubberDuck]

Redford's plan called out by Raj.

http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/04/05...invents-triage

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by getbak

Former Calgary 7 News anchor?

Yep

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Azure

Ah right. The standard 'need to throw more money at the problem in order to solve it' response.

Alberta and Canada won't ever solve our health care problem until we go to the two-tier European style system.

I'm not sure why people are so scared to add more privatization to the health care system. I think it's mostly people being indoctrinated into the belief that anything but a 100% public system is a heartless system.