Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
The only way I support a fair tax, or a sales tax as its more widely known, is if income tax is completely abolished. Then I would absolutely love the fair tax.
As for the spending/revenue problem. You can't up taxes and just think it will increase revenue and you'll be good to go. You have to think for the long-term.
Which brings us to the actual problem in Alberta. Nobody ever thought about the long-term. The Heritage Fund wasn't managed properly(see Norway/Alaska like some people mentioned)....but also, Klein cut back to hard to get the province back on track. I agree that cuts were needed, but he crippled the province a bit too much.
We should have cut back bit by bit, and looked at the long-term. We were going to get out of debt and get rid of the deficit anyways, but we could have been more smart about it.
Right now we have to cut back, obviously to get the budget under control. Although I do think we'll come out of this 'recession' just fine and will be running another surplus down the road. Especially if oil stays up, and hopefully natural gas will go up too.
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Hence the waiting list for various infrastructure projects.
It's fine for a government to cut spending, but they need to realize that by delaying funding to various departments, the problems do not go away, and will only become someone else's headache in 20 years' time.
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“The fact is that censorship always defeats it's own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.”
Henry Steel Commager (1902-1998)
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