Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

This government has no interest in trimming fat. It's got the largest cabinet ever, with the largest premiers staff ever. They made up a Chief Firearms Office so they could duplicate federal rolls, I read it will be up to 70 people this year. A complete waste of money. They are pushing out the RCMP stealthily(sheriffs deployed in cities, bribing Grand Prairie) to deploy an expensive unnecessary provincial police force that absolutely no one wants. They've thrown money at off road groups instead of charging them user fees, essentially tax dollars to continue mangling nature in our province. They have a department whose sole job is defend corporate interests in one industry, costing us how much each year? Who ####ing knows. They fight legal battles with the feds they can't win, only enriching lawyers on both sides.

There is no shortage of fat to be trimmed, the problem is, they keep eating bacon. Fat increasing.

I don’t disagree with any of this. I think where we diverge is that I think their opponents are just going to do other dumb things with the money.

[Roughneck]

Like what other dumb things?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Slava

I don’t disagree with any of this. I think where we diverge is that I think their opponents are just going to do other dumb things with the money.

If the NDP released a platform of doing the exact same things they did last time they were in office only they were going to double or triple their lightbulb budget, it would probably still be a more sensible option than the current government.

[Fuzz]

I am genuinely curious what areas people think the NDP will waste money needlessly on. Healthcare? Education? Green projects? Please, expand.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I am genuinely curious what areas people think the NDP will waste money needlessly on. Healthcare? Education? Green projects? Please, expand.

Unions

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Unions

Expand.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Unions

Still waiting for our $1.6B back from Jason Kenney's failed bet on Keystone, which everyone knew wouldn't get built. Is that coming back or naw? Unions don't hold a candle to that kind of insane money mismanagement.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I am genuinely curious what areas people think the NDP will waste money needlessly on. Healthcare? Education? Green projects? Please, expand.

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Slava

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

They were pretty astute when you compare them to most other modern provincial governments, and they were objectively better at budgeting and actual spending than the UCP, so I’m not sure where “probably” comes from.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

I'm saying if a government is going to be spending money, the NDP's priorities line up a lot more with what I view as a better society than the priorities of the UCP.

[PsYcNeT]

When the case against the NDP's fiscal track record is predicated entirely on repeating the same false talking points endlessly for 5 years, I wouldn't expect any deviation as we pull into the next election.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Slava

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

If you want to see a fiscal train wreak, how about all the wasted $Billions on pipelines, sky palaces, and giveaways to oil companies to clean up their mess with their wells, etc (that's already $10B+ right there) that the blew and gave away. Not to mention they keep on privatizing everything to recently spun up shell companies run by crony insiders. ala our lab services, health care cleaning contracts, etc (that we know about).

Even if you ascribe to the flakey narrative that NDP wasted money, the scale is not even comparable to what the UCP has historically wasted in a similar time span. If we are going to waste money, I would rather it go towards programs that have some ancillary benefit to me rather than just corporate giveaways and lining some political insider's pockets.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

If you want to see a fiscal train wreak, how about all the wasted $Billions on pipelines, sky palaces, and not giveaways to oil companies to clean up their mess with their wells, etc (that's already $10B+ right there) that the blew and gave away. Not to mention they keep on privatizing everything to spinning up shell companies run by crony insiders. ala our lab services, health care cleaning contracts, etc (that we know about).

Even if you ascribe to the flakey narrative that NDP wasted money, the scale is not even comparable to what the UCP has historically wasted in a similar time span. If we are going to waste money, I would rather it go towards programs that have some ancillary benefit to me rather than just corporate giveaways and lining some political insider's pockets.

Why do you hate job creators? Have some respect for the trickle down economy.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Why do you hate job creators? Have some respect for the trickle down economy.

Yea, yea... no arguing facts with some ppl who will believe what they want.

Alberta has had the worst wage growth in all of Canada under UCP.
https://albertaworker.ca/news/after-...wth-in-canada/

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Slava

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

This whole post would work just as well if you swapped "NDP" for "UCP".

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Slava

You can't possibly be naïve enough to think they're some great panacea. They were fiscally a train wreck. Did things work out and we got the budget to balance eventually? Sure. Because of energy royalties and not because of anything incredible they would've done.

Governments do some good things and some stupid things. They give money to pet projects, fund their special interests and "we" could do without a lot of that. Would the NDP be better than what we have today? Probably. But let's not pretend they were some incredibly competent fiscal managers. We basically got bailed out of their monstrous spending purely because energy came back.

So provide a list of all the terrible things the NDP did that wasted millions. Fuzz already provided a pretty detailed list for the UCP, surely if "both sides" applies then you can do the same

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

So provide a list of all the terrible things the NDP did that wasted millions. Fuzz already provided a pretty detailed list for the UCP, surely if "both sides" applies then you can do the same

I'm just pulling out of this discussion. We've been over it a million times and everyone here thinks that the NDP were amazing. I'm fine with just agreeing and saying I'm wrong because I don't want to bother with this whole exercise.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm just pulling out of this discussion. We've been over it a million times and everyone here thinks that the NDP were amazing. I'm fine with just agreeing and saying I'm wrong because I don't want to bother with this whole exercise.

You may not believe it, but I don't think the NDP are amazing. In fact, I have several serious reservations with them. That said, I have way, way more problems with the UCP and how they govern, and given the fact that we've let conservatives #### up and we've forgiven (ignored?) them for 40+ years, I'm completely open to giving the NDP a second chance - they deserve it. By the time they left office in 2019, the NDP were governing this province just fine.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm just pulling out of this discussion. We've been over it a million times and everyone here thinks that the NDP were amazing. I'm fine with just agreeing and saying I'm wrong because I don't want to bother with this whole exercise.

People don’t think the NDP were amazing, people think the NDP were competent. Mostly when compared to other provincial governments and especially when compared to the UCP.

I truly don’t understand what is hard to understand about that. We live in a province where there are two viable options. People make posts saying one option is better than the other, and you chime in with “well they’re not perfect actually and not amazing!” Like… sure, but why do you take any praise of the NDP, especially given the comparison to our current government, as people lauding over their incredibleness? Why is praising the NDP at all offensive to you, and why do then just bail out of every conversation accusing it of being some “whole thing” or whatever instead of just offering up anything else?

[sketchyt]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm just pulling out of this discussion. We've been over it a million times and everyone here thinks that the NDP were amazing. I'm fine with just agreeing and saying I'm wrong because I don't want to bother with this whole exercise.