Alberta Politics Thread

[username]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Conservatives be like "EVERYONE IS SO DUMB AND VOTED IN THE NDP GRRR!" and they be all "CUT BACK EDUCATION BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE SMART ENOUGH!"

Thought provoking

[OMG!WTF!]

I'm a reasonably intelligent person with a basic understanding of interest payments and debt.......and we should give the NDP a chance? I don't get that one.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by username

Thought provoking

I'm only here to offer insight.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Wait why did the NDP have to borrow so much money to make budget? Isn't that what the Heritage Fund is for? To make up budget shortfalls?

The Heritage Fund is gone. Last year's budget took care of that.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Reaper

The Heritage Fund is gone. Last year's budget took care of that.

Damn. You'd think that after 10 years of unprecedented wealth there would have been more eh?

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Damn. You'd think that after 10 years of unprecedented wealth there would have been more eh?

There should have been more. Something something drunken sailors.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Reaper

There should have been more. Something something drunken sailors.

Still, the fair value of the Heritage Fund stood at 18.2 billion as of December 31, 2015. That's hardly zero.

Would be interesting to know what the magic number is for revisionists.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Still, the fair value of the Heritage Fund stood at 18.2 billion as of December 31, 2015. That's hardly zero.

Would be interesting to know what the magic number is for revisionists.

And I'd be curious where it would be at if Ralph Bucks weren't given out but rather invested into said fund.

[killer_carlson]

The Ralph Bucks decision has to be considered in light of comments Klein made about intra-provincial relations.

He said that if you have too much money in reserve, the other provinces start to create ways to get a piece of your money.

Interesting to consider 10 years later and the extortion attempts by BC, Ontario and Quebec on the pipeline issues.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Still, the fair value of the Heritage Fund stood at 18.2 billion as of December 31, 2015. That's hardly zero.

Would be interesting to know what the magic number is for revisionists.

I actually don't get why we aren't using the fund.

This absolutely unprecedented environment (I guess the 80s was another) was what the Heritage fund was designed for.

I do get that it's political suicide because most people are uneducated, but this is exactly what we need to tap into, raise taxes to eliminate the structural deficit, and then get things together so we can rebuild the fund when times get good again.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

The Ralph Bucks decision has to be considered in light of comments Klein made about intra-provincial relations.

He said that if you have too much money in reserve, the other provinces start to create ways to get a piece of your money.

Interesting to consider 10 years later and the extortion attempts by BC, Ontario and Quebec on the pipeline issues.

Well ya, but he also could have invested it into infrastructure. Then we wouldn't be stuck with a sub par cancer centre.

[username]

You know it's a bad budget when even the NDP supporters are supporting the budget and instead trying to lay blame on previous governments.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by shermanator

Thought this was an interesting post on the subject by Kathleen Smith. I have a feeling most posters in this thread are going to get huffy over this. For the record, I am neither a PC nor a Wildrose nor an NDP supporter:



https://www.facebook.com/KathleenGeo...53748175673768

I'm not going to get all huffy over this, but I won't pretend that its sensible either. I have a hard time taking the idea that "the good times were built on the backs of the disadvantaged" kind of thing seriously. The cuts that took place in the early 90's weren't great for a lot of people, but I don't think that it's purely the disadvantaged who suffered. It also gets a little stale when we're blaming things done 20 years ago for every potential issue today. On a federal level people hate the idea of the NEP being brought up today, and then talk about 1995 in the next breath. Its a little disingenuous.

I wish we would've chosen a more centrist approach to the past election. The stupidity of the "we'll never run a debt because debt is evil" crowd is just as ridiculous with the mirror image of "we'll just borrow every last dollar because rates are low". Neither position is sensible, and both are damaging. The NDP has just shown that they can't come anywhere near that balance though.

[Table 5]

I know its sacrilegious to speak of anything positive in this thread, and while I'm not sure how much impact it will have in the big scheme of things, I do appreciate the small-business tax reduction in the budget.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Slava

I wish we would've chosen a more centrist approach to the past election. The stupidity of the "we'll never run a debt because debt is evil" crowd is just as ridiculous with the mirror image of "we'll just borrow every last dollar because rates are low". Neither position is sensible, and both are damaging. The NDP has just shown that they can't come anywhere near that balance though.

Yet the Liberals and the Alberta Party had the smallest amount of votes. The former didn't do themselves any favours by running dry, bland, and near invisible candidates, and the latter is just too young and fresh of a party to make any dent. Therefore, the protest vote switches to the left, riding on the momentum of the federal NDP'ers at the time and on the coattails of provincial political change.

In an ideal world, there is no left/center/right parties to determine debt levels, borrowing, etc. - hopefully one day it's all based on quantitative data built on algorithms using supercomputers that can do with money that no ideological group of politicians could ever do.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Yet the Liberals and the Alberta Party had the smallest amount of votes. The former didn't do themselves any favours by running dry, bland, and near invisible candidates, and the latter is just too young and fresh of a party to make any dent. Therefore, the protest vote switches to the left, riding on the momentum of the federal NDP'ers at the time and on the coattails of provincial political change.

In an ideal world, there is no left/center/right parties to determine debt levels, borrowing, etc. - hopefully one day it's all based on quantitative data built on algorithms using supercomputers that can do with money that no ideological group of politicians could ever do.

Become like a financial terminator when is reaches self awareness, kill us all through a convoluted ponzi scheme and then go for ice cream?

[Ozy_Flame]

If the ice cream is Rocky Road flavored, I'll be pissed if I don't get some before the mass human genocide

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

maths

Haha - this image is such a joke. Basically picked the highest possible income you could have before the phase-out of the rebate. This is so misleading. Try this:

Single: Income = $52,000 / Rebate = $0
Couple (no kids): Income = $102,000 / Rebate = $0
Couple (kids): Income = $102,000 / Rebate = $0

[GGG]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

These are issues that will plague our province for decades.

You don't simply increase the provincial debt by $50. Billion. Dollars. In four years without any consequences.

Seriously GGG, give your head a shake.

Do you understand that through these actions the NDP government is causing a material deterioration in our credit rating as a province at the same time that they are taking on unprecedented amounts of debt?

The net result is a massive increase in debt, and a massive increase in servicing said debt.

How this isn't sinking in to NDP apologists is absolutely baffling to me.

The 2015 protest vote will haunt our province for decades.

(enoch, sorry, obviously not directed at you, was only quoting your post)

How much debt did we accumulate under Redford / Stelmech? (I include her spending the contingency funds as accumulating debt). The PC's needed to be removed from power. The stupidity of the Alberta population is at fault for blindly electing the same government for 50 years. Change was required. Is the NDP doing the best job? No. would the WR have done better? maybe although the deficit would likely be 9 billion instead of 10.

What we really need is to exclude all Royalty revenue from the budget and tax and spend based on an assumption of zero royalty and build a sovereign wealth fund or at least say any royalties earned over $60 oil cant be counted on. The corporate, carbon and income tax increases that were done under the NDP are necessary to accomplish this task.

Hopefully after this rout people will understand that reliance on oil revenue to subsidize operating budgets is a bad idea. Artificially low taxes based on energy extraction leads to this problem. That is the issue that needs to be solved.

For those who don't like this budget what is your proposal for the next four years. What are your 40 - 60 billion in cost reductions? How much debt would you run.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Haha - this image is such a joke. Basically picked the highest possible income you could have before the phase-out of the rebate. This is so misleading. Try this:

Single: Income = $52,000 / Rebate = $0
Couple (no kids): Income = $102,000 / Rebate = $0
Couple (kids): Income = $102,000 / Rebate = $0

I had no idea Ned and Maude Flanders made as much as Dr. And Mrs. Hibbard.