Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[Senator Clay Davis]

How is Harper and the CPC the least in terms of not vote buying? I'm pretty sure every single demographic has been offered some kind of tax credit except single people. It's funny that people somehow think collecting less revenue is not vote buying, but promising to invest in segments of the economy is vote buying. They are both vote buying, even if the optics are a little different. All three parties engage in it, and pretty much at the same level, though they obviously are targeting different demographics.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by saillias

Could've sworn I read articles from a thread here about how it, must've been somewhere else.

You might be thinking of San Francisco, which raised their minimum wage to 15 dollars, in a process that will hit that mark in 2018. That worked in such a positive manner that other cities in the states are looking into the program, and Berkeley is considering 19 dollars, which even I think is too high. Seattle is the biggest city after San Fransisco to put this in place, and is facing more scrutiny because San Fransisco has a history of crazy policy and isn't taken as seriously. Also, fear in some quarters that 2 major cities indicate a trend. Which it does.

[Coach]

I was curious about that myself. How is essentially guaranteeing deficit spending and raises in taxes (LPC and NDP) vote buying? If anything is vote buying it's the TFSA increases, Status quo on corporate taxes, credits for renovations, etc.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

That would be Harper.

Haha, you mean the guy who is trying to buy every vote he can with ridiculous boutique tax credits?

[troutman]

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Do you hyper-partisan CPC supporters really believe anyone buys into your 'impartial and unbiased' analysis of the debate? It's a joke, right?

If anyone's being hyper-partisan...

I'm not a CPC supporter. At this stage I'm pretty torn between voting CPC and Liberal. I've voted for both in the past. I'm in Confederation, it's apparently a dead heat and Matt Grant is by all accounts a pretty decent guy and as of today I'd have no qualms about him as my MP.

As for the NDP, I don't think I've ever seen a platform from them that I could support. It's never made a single bit of fiscal sense, which is the primary issue I vote on. I was hoping that a lot of that was the result of being the third wheel - if you're not really a legitimate threat to govern, you have to talk a bigger game and even if your proposals are unrealistic. So I was hoping that this time, when the platform comes out, it would look like something that could reasonably serve as the basis of government. It's sounding like it will in fact look more sober, but that the contents will nonetheless be nothing I would want to support, ideologically.

I didn't purport to be impartial and unbiased, though. Those were my reactions, which are of course subject to my existing personal biases. I just felt like spelling them out on a page. I am, however, being intellectually honest about what I think after making a sincere attempt to understand the positions being offered. This is more than many seem willing to do, apparently including you, so I'll just leave it at that and bow out again.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by saillias

Could've sworn I read articles from a thread here about how it, must've been somewhere else.

No, you definitely read it here. A bunch of ding dongs kept re-posting the same blog-post hosted on Forbes.com (and written by a UKIP supporter and staunch free-market capitalist) and another article written by a right-wing think-tank about how restaurant owners were shutting down because of the new minimum wage. The problem being that those same restaurant owners denied ever saying any of that in an actual piece of journalism written by the Seattle Times, and the other two posts were written well before the implementation of the new minimum wage (which also still hasn't happened yet). Both posts also ignored that there had been an increase in applications for either new business licenses or restaurant licenses, which obviously you can't tie to the minimum wage, but if you're going to make the argument at least get your facts straight.

The unfortunate thing is, if you google "Seattle minimum wage," you get the right-wing propaganda pieces. You actually have to do a bit of digging for the Times article. In conclusion, fact check your sources, people!

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

How is Harper and the CPC the least in terms of not vote buying? I'm pretty sure every single demographic has been offered some kind of tax credit except single people. It's funny that people somehow think collecting less revenue is not vote buying, but promising to invest in segments of the economy is vote buying. They are both vote buying, even if the optics are a little different. All three parties engage in it, and pretty much at the same level, though they obviously are targeting different demographics.

Not raising taxes while not deficit spending would be the definition, no? By all means, attack the CPC on everything economic. It's a bit ironic to me that that is the hill they are standing on... but that is probably the best they've got.
But when the LPC say outright they will spend at will and run deficits and the NDP plans to take in $10B in extra taxes and spend it all, it's pretty hard to say the CPC isn't doing the least amount of election vote buying.
I'm curious whose vote they are buying?

[polak]

nvm

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Not raising taxes while not deficit spending would be the definition, no? By all means, attack the CPC on everything economic. It's a bit ironic to me that that is the hill they are standing on... but that is probably the best they've got.
But when the LPC say outright they will spend at will and run deficits and the NDP plans to take in $10B in extra taxes and spend it all, it's pretty hard to say the CPC isn't doing the least amount of election vote buying.
I'm curious whose vote they are buying?

People who can use the extra TSFA room.
Families who just got that big child care cheque.

They are all buying votes if that's how you want to look at it.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

People who can use the extra TSFA room.
Families who just got that big child care cheque.

They are all buying votes if that's how you want to look at it.

People who don't want to pay taxes in general, which is pretty much everyone.

[polak]

Drive by post. I like the Liberals spend when interest rates are low plan. if our debt to GDP ratio is still healthy (which it will be) then why does a deficit of of a billion or two on a multi-trillion dollar economy matter when we can shore up infrastructure and other areas?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Not raising taxes while not deficit spending would be the definition, no? By all means, attack the CPC on everything economic. It's a bit ironic to me that that is the hill they are standing on... but that is probably the best they've got.
But when the LPC say outright they will spend at will and run deficits and the NDP plans to take in $10B in extra taxes and spend it all, it's pretty hard to say the CPC isn't doing the least amount of election vote buying.
I'm curious whose vote they are buying?

How is saying you'll run deficits during a recession "vote-buying" and not just sound, basic economics?

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by rubecube

The unfortunate thing is, if you google "Seattle minimum wage," you get the right-wing propaganda pieces. You actually have to do a bit of digging for the Times article. In conclusion, fact check your sources, people!

I mentioned my anecdotal experience with Seattle from trips over the last decade in another thread. Certainly no expert but it was pretty freaky to see so many boarded up and closed restaurants, stores and buildings in the downtown core. Even near their main convention center you'd walk past what looked like abandoned sets from the Walking Dead (buildings obviously abandoned with vegetation wildly growing).

Been to Westlake Center many times but it's obviously dying even with its location and tourist friendly monorail connection. McDonald's had to close up shop and even the cool Japanese dollar store downsized staff and moved to half their original floor space.

Other people claim that they've been well on this route before they started increasing wages to $15 but that's what I saw.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I mentioned my anecdotal experience with Seattle from trips over the last decade in another thread. Certainly no expert but it was pretty freaky to see so many boarded up and closed restaurants, stores and buildings in the downtown core. Even near their main convention center you'd walk past what looked like abandoned sets from the Walking Dead (buildings obviously abandoned with vegetation wildly growing).

Been to Westlake Center many times but it's obviously dying even with its location and tourist friendly monorail connection. McDonald's had to close up shop and even the cool Japanese dollar store downsized staff and moved to half their original floor space.

Other people claim that they've been well on this route before they started increasing wages to $15 but that's what I saw.

Yep, and I responded to you in that thread. I go there at least once annually and it's been getting bad for a long time, but according to some of the local sources it actually might be starting to turn around.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

People who can use the extra TSFA room.
Families who just got that big child care cheque.

They are all buying votes if that's how you want to look at it.

Ok, fair enough.
I am pretty sure those were both in the spring budget - which doesn't mean they weren't setting the table for a fall election - but aren't how I think about election spending. I meant more like Trudeau announce last week the $20B for transit spending (not that I'm against it at all) but I'll give you that.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Not raising taxes while not deficit spending would be the definition, no? By all means, attack the CPC on everything economic. It's a bit ironic to me that that is the hill they are standing on... but that is probably the best they've got.
But when the LPC say outright they will spend at will and run deficits and the NDP plans to take in $10B in extra taxes and spend it all, it's pretty hard to say the CPC isn't doing the least amount of election vote buying.
I'm curious whose vote they are buying?

Well if anything the CPC are the only ones who are doing direct vote buying. Vote CPC and you get tax credits, or more TFSA room, which of course translates to more money in your pocket. The Liberals planning to spend on infrastructure is vote buying in that the people of the ridings that will get the infrastructure are incentivized to vote Liberal, but in that instance they enjoy a collective good (like say transit investment) rather than simply more money in their individual pocket. The NDP would likely be the same, though obviously likely to try and benefit unions more, which is kind of odd considering they're going to vote NDP no matter what.

But vote buying is something everyone does, it's just a money spending promise predicated on voting a certain way. Whether its the CPC collecting less revenue as the others, or the others offering to spend more, it's money out of the federal coffers.

[Harry Lime]

So all of the parties are vote buying.
None of the vote buying applies to me.
None of the economic policies fix major outstanding problems.
No controversial subjects are being tackled.

Whichever party is elected is going to be crap. Is that a statement of fact at this point?

[polak]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

So all of the parties are vote buying.
None of the vote buying applies to me.
None of the economic policies fix major outstanding problems.
No controversial subjects are being tackled.

Whichever party is elected is going to be crap. Is that a statement of fact at this point?

Well there's more to their platforms than economics.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Ok, fair enough.
I am pretty sure those were both in the spring budget - which doesn't mean they weren't setting the table for a fall election - but aren't how I think about election spending. I meant more like Trudeau announce last week the $20B for transit spending (not that I'm against it at all) but I'll give you that.

They are all going around making promises right now. Harper announced some Seniors tax credit the other day. I'd don't consider that buying votes. Its having ideas and presenting them.