Federal Budget 2016: $29B Deficit

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Ya, having a conscience sucks . It's just eay easier to have a " #### everyone else I come first " conservative attitude.

It is easy to be selfish but to actually think about others is taxing and outside of our natural train of thought.

I would gladly pay a little more in taxes if it means better quality of life for the less fortunate and first nations, a cleaner environment as well as maintaining the level of social programs we all enjoy.

Taxes don't have to go down every year.

[transplant99]

What does the budget propose to do about this? As mentioned, it proposes to spend a great deal: adjusted for inflation and population growth, likely the largest two-year increase in spending, outside of recession, since 1972-1973. There were larger increases in the early 1980s, and 2009-10 alone beat every record. But those were recession years. By contrast, the current plunge into deficit is almost wholly discretionary.

Compare the spending track laid out in the 2015 budget, just a year ago. For 2015-16, it projected program spending of $263.2 billion. The current figure: $270.9 billion, an increase of nearly $8 billion. Indeed, it’s $3.5 billion more than the finance minister said it would be just a month ago.

But that’s just the warm-up act. For 2016-17, last year’s budget projected spending of $274.3 billion. The current estimate: $291.4 billion — an increase of $17 billion. For 2017-18, projected spending has gone from the $282.7 billion projected last year to $304.6 billion today. All told, that’s nearly $40 billion in new spending over two years.

How much of that is to be invested in infrastructure, the Liberals’ promised elixir for sluggish productivity? Accepting the Liberals’ own expansive definition of “infrastructure,” i.e. virtually everything, it adds up to barely a quarter of that sum: $4 billion this year, $7.3 billion the next. And how much will that add to growth? Again, accepting the budget’s own figures as gospel: two-tenths of one per cent of GDP the first year, four-tenths the second. Where the economy might have grown, in nominal terms, by 4.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent, it will instead grow by 4.9 and 4.7 per cent. Happy days are here again.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/na...173/story.html

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

the mental gymnastics required to be a good socialist are astounding

It's pretty simple, the fundamental belief is that Murray Edwards does not personally bring 2000x as much value to society at I do. Maybe his assets and employees cumulatively do bring that much value, but he is personally benefiting at that level.

Our system currently rewards him 2000x more than I am rewarded, so adjustments need to be made, and the government is making those adjustments.

As I've said before you also shouldn't look at % of income, you should look at % of disposable income. maybe 10% of my income is truely disposable, after I maintain a typical Canadian standard of living. While 99% of Murray Edwards income is disposable, after maintaining a high Canadian standard of living.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Ya, having a conscience sucks . It's just easier to have a " #### everyone else I come first " conservative attitude.

It is easy to be selfish but to actually think about others is taxing (no pun intended)and outside of our natural train of thought.......

This rant is certainly insightful to your state of mind, and what you believe a conservatives state of mind is, so thank you for that.

However it is profoundly wrong. You haven't yet realized that people, including conservatives, are quite compassionate, it is the means to help the most people that is difference. It is a different philosophy on making a better society. It is NOT that a fiscal conservative doesn't care, and you're going to be much better off the sooner you realize that, than having to hang your political views on demonizing an alternative one.

In really simple terms, compare it to parenting styles, 2 families both with the same amount of money.

One family gives their kids everything they want, even if they can't afford it. As they get older, the parents pay for cell phones, buy them cars, then pay for a condo to move into. Besides the precarious financial position it puts the family in, the kids now think that the parents will always take care of them. Because the parents have compassion and care, right?

The other family teaches hard work and responsibility, the kids get allowances for work they do, they have to get jobs in order to buy themselves things like cell phones and cars. The kids hopefully learn that if they want things, they will work to get it themselves, not just wait for the parents or government to take care of them.

The second set of parents care, and have as much compassion, as the first set, but they have very different philosophies on what will raise the happiest, healthiest, strongest adults. But they both care very much.

I won't get deeper into this now, other than to urge you to try to understand that conservatism vs. Socialism/liberalism isn't about caring vs. Not caring, it is about the best way to achieve the best environment for the most people.

The idea of taking from anyone who has more, and giving that to whoever has less, so that everyone ends up at the same spot in the middle seems like a simple solution, except for a whole bunch of reasons, it doesn't work. You end up failing many of the people that you were trying to help.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Ya, having a conscience sucks . It's just easier to have a " #### everyone else I come first " conservative attitude.

It is easy to be selfish but to actually think about others is taxing (no pun intended)and outside of our natural train of thought.

I'm not really suprised either by comments like this on the siteanymore. Where socilists are the devil and conservitive talking point one liners like this draw the majority of support.

I understand the area thus site draws the most support from and respect your views but throwing out beinfg a socially resposible person is being a terrible person is just filled with irony. If socialism was really such an evil ideology we would be the ones cutting funding to vital social programs that effect our healthcare, education, public services. We are infact asking the complete oppisite and asking for more compassion.

Socialist arejust so damn evil. You should always have a priest on hand to perform emergency exorsists.

The idea that socialists have a conscience and conservatism is about selfish greed is nothing more than petty hate.

As Canadians, we all share similar values. No point on the political spectrum has a greater claim on compassion than any other.

Political debates are about how best to run the government, i.e. changes at the margin. If you think you're starting from a morally superior point than others are, all I can say is that's your problem.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

It's been really a fast trip down a slippery slope for the left on that point, the notion that if you're on the left you're just a better human being, full stop. It's ironic how these things swing, I remember when the right used to lay monopolistic claim to that argument on the basis that they were God-fearing Christians and the left was full of sinful hedonistic infidels.

I swear, I seem to constantly end up in the position of pointing this out to people whose politics I largely agree with. You'd think I was a card-carrying member of the CPC rather than a liberal. I feel like I'm the guy at a party apologizing for my racist cousin's simplistic world view.

[Flames in 07]

A signal the current AB and Canada government needs to see is the flight of talented labour. Both governments ran on platform of taking the 1%'s money to buy votes is something that should have repercussion. To equate leaving because you are about to be taxed at a much higher rate as a lack of morality, to me, only comes from a massive sense of selfishness and entitlement. People expecting Murray Edwards or anyone else to be trapped into a system that fleeces them, and to watch unsustainable programs that when you know better realize that the long term pain more than offsets the short term pain.

Ryan Coke had a good example, he said he didn't want to go deeper but I will. It's nice to give people free money, free educations and free social programs. But it has to be sustainable, and in this case, nobody has any idea how these programs will be paid for. But they will be paid for, one way or another Canadians have to pay for these expenses. You can't create nor destroy matter, and the same is true for debt. That has to be paid for in some way, and all the defending this budget, without a well drawn out, robust repayment plan is the height of selfishness.

Further, you won't find too many economists who will tell you, you are developing a hard working, creative, effective work force with governments and budgets like this. I'm watching more and more Canadians build an expectation that the government will take care of them, which sounds nice, but the reality is that we live in a competitive space as it relates to creating value, and when business leaders pick up and leave its a sad and scary dynamic. The average voter doesn't understand what the effect of that flight is, or that it is even happening in the first place.

Canada's economy has not performed well because it has a dynamic, creative, value creating work force. it gravy trains on high resource prices and government controlled industries that hard wire a lack of competition. As commodity prices drop, it frankly doesn't have much left except a growing population that knows it deserves a specific quality of living, how its funded (either rich people or the following generation) isn't terribly relevant.

As it relates to financial views, I have always had a stereotype that left leaning and right leaning don't differ in how nice they are, but rather how pragmatic they are. And many people over the last few pages are proving that stereotype correct.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by #-3

It's pretty simple, the fundamental belief is that Murray Edwards does not personally bring 2000x as much value to society at I do. Maybe his assets and employees cumulatively do bring that much value, but he is personally benefiting at that level

Ok I have read this catastrophe paragraph a few times now. Can you maybe explain your point again, but this time in English?

So maybe his assets (which includes his companies? Or do we for some reason not count those? Trying to follow your logic) or his employees equate to 2,000x the value to society that you bring, but he doesn't deserve to "benefit at that level" (what does this even mean)? Am I reading this right? Why the hell not?

I am actually ok with a guy like Edwards having $2billion, because I know how critical CNRL is to this province. But I'm not sure where I stand on the tax issue, personally. I kind of agree with both sides of the debate.

But anyway, that paragraph reads as a train wreck.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

I'm watching more and more Canadians build an expectation that the government will take care of them, which sounds nice, but the reality is that we live in a competitive space as it relates to creating value, and when business leaders pick up and leave its a sad and scary dynamic. The average voter doesn't understand what the effect of that flight is, or that it is even happening in the first place.

In regards to that expectation, I happened to walk right through a giant protest in Montreal last year. It was made up of students and unions who were upset because the government of Quebec has realized that "taking care of them" isn't free.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

This rant is certainly insightful to your state of mind, and what you believe a conservatives state of mind is, so thank you for that.

However it is profoundly wrong. You haven't yet realized that people, including conservatives, are quite compassionate, it is the means to help the most people that is difference. It is a different philosophy on making a better society. It is NOT that a fiscal conservative doesn't care, and you're going to be much better off the sooner you realize that, than having to hang your political views on demonizing an alternative one.

In really simple terms, compare it to parenting styles, 2 families both with the same amount of money.

One family gives their kids everything they want, even if they can't afford it. As they get older, the parents pay for cell phones, buy them cars, then pay for a condo to move into. Besides the precarious financial position it puts the family in, the kids now think that the parents will always take care of them. Because the parents have compassion and care, right?

The other family teaches hard work and responsibility, the kids get allowances for work they do, they have to get jobs in order to buy themselves things like cell phones and cars. The kids hopefully learn that if they want things, they will work to get it themselves, not just wait for the parents or government to take care of them.

The second set of parents care, and have as much compassion, as the first set, but they have very different philosophies on what will raise the happiest, healthiest, strongest adults. But they both care very much.

I won't get deeper into this now, other than to urge you to try to understand that conservatism vs. Socialism/liberalism isn't about caring vs. Not caring, it is about the best way to achieve the best environment for the most people.

The idea of taking from anyone who has more, and giving that to whoever has less, so that everyone ends up at the same spot in the middle seems like a simple solution, except for a whole bunch of reasons, it doesn't work. You end up failing many of the people that you were trying to help.

So we just need all these poor people to just work harder and have less government programs to help them to taech them a leeson in working hard to acheive their goals? That will solve the problems.

In your anology the liberals are the parents that just hand out every thing and the conservatives are just taking on the "tough love " model .


Damn those working poor people who need to work 2 ansd some times 3 jobs just to get by.... We will just cut those social programs and make there lifes even tougher.
It seems alot of people think the ones recieving these benifiets are just pot smoking hippies sitting at home playong xbox .


Not surprised by how many people thanked this notion on this site. It's kinda discusting this is the anology you went with has typically it is well off generally rich parents that treat their kids like how you equated the liberal stance.

I don't care how much you try to make it seem like I know nothing about politics but trying to justify that the people who need these programs that conservitive govrnments consistently cut becuase they frame the people reciving them as social parisites and a plague on society is just as wrong as you procieve my end of the convo.

I think If more of the people who feel these people are social parisites and actually spent time at various outreach centers like I do they wouldn't be so quick to agree with this stance.

Alot of donated food and clothes I hand out when I volunteer are to families and single people who work 2 or even 3 jobs that can barley afford to make rent in ####ty neighborhoods. They didn't even qualify under Harpers regime for any sort of help.

Go out into the world and see the working poor at these centers . It might open your mind up a little. It is nice to sit behind a keyboard and defend your postion when you don't have to deal with these situations 3 to 4 times a week.
.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

The idea that socialists have a conscience and conservatism is about selfish greed is nothing more than petty hate.

As Canadians, we all share similar values. No point on the political spectrum has a greater claim on compassion than any other.

Political debates are about how best to run the government, i.e. changes at the margin. If you think you're starting from a morally superior point than others are, all I can say is that's your problem.

Actully being a fiscal conservative is about being greedy. You literally place the object of money higher then many low income peoples quility of life when you cut social programs so the upper middle class and the 1% can save a few hundred tax dollars.

Placing higher value on money more than human life is the exact definition of greed.

[Ryan Coke]

Interestingly, I grew up in poverty, in a single parent family that lived on social services (welfare) for a number of years. I have first hand experience with much of what you are talking about.

People, in general, are incredibly resilient and capable when they have need and opportunity. Handouts only alleviate short term need, and do nothing to give opportunity to make their lives better in a more long term way.

I could write pages on this, and I have a fairly unique insight into both ends of the socio-economic spectrum.

Reward hard work, education, and innovation, and more people will work hard, get educated, and innovate. At the same time ensure that there is opportunity for anyone, regardless of their finances or family background, to achieve if they do those things.

I recognize that I am over simplifying to an extent, and there is more to it, but I don't want this to get too long and unreadable.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Actully being a fiscal conservative is about being greedy. You literally place the object of money higher then many low income peoples quility of life when you cut social programs so the upper middle class and the 1% can save a few hundred tax dollars.

Placing higher value on money more than human life is the exact definition of greed.

You could not be more incorrect. Fiscally conservative is being responsible with money. You are proposing to use money that Canada doesn't have, and spend on those you deem need help. With absolutely no thought on repayment. None.

But the money needs to be repaid somehow. You are being greedy by taking from future generations because clearly people of 2016 deserve free money that the next generation will pay for. It requires a massive sense of entitlement and selfishness to take a bunch of money with zero plans or care on how it's repaid.

[Matata]

I can't imagine any country ever paying off their debt, no one is getting into office on a campaign of "High taxes, low services, to pay off the debt." I have an easier time imagining (A) Global financial collapse and/or financial revolution or (B) Technological and social evolution creates a post scarcity society where the concept of money is slowly phased out and ultimately forgotten.

Women from past: "Let me guess, in the future, you don't have money."
Capt. Kirk: "Well, we don't."

It's entirely possible that I've lost my sense of reality from spending too much time with banker conspiracy theories.

[peter12]

Even so, we are in a sustained period of fiscal austerity. Canada's budget is a global outlier.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Matata

I can't imagine any country ever paying off their debt, no one is getting into office on a campaign of "High taxes, low services, to pay off the debt." I have an easier time imagining (A) Global financial collapse and/or financial revolution or (B) Technological and social evolution creates a post scarcity society where the concept of money is slowly phased out and ultimately forgotten.

Women from past: "Let me guess, in the future, you don't have money."
Capt. Kirk: "Well, we don't."

It's entirely possible that I've lost my sense of reality from spending too much time with banker conspiracy theories.

Don't worry. I'm at the bank every day and I agree with you.

[Azure]

Again, I don't think people would have such a huge problem with the deficit if they could see where they money was spent and perhaps even see a 5, 10 and 15 year return on the $30 billion.

Governments are notorious for spending a lot of money on nothing. If there was a way to track the spending down to every $100 I do believe we'd see a more effective government and budget.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Surprised no one has pointed out to combustiblefuel that there's also such a thing as a tax base as there is a tax rate, and that fiscal conservatives would argue that their policies are more likely to increase the tax base thereby generating more public revenue to pay for fun stuff like schools and hospitals, while simultaneously reducing the scope and influence of government in peoples' everyday lives... which rightly or wrongly seems like a legitimate perspective.

But nah, that's not a discussion worth having. Those conservatives are all just a bunch of greedy old white guys.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Surprised no one has pointed out to combustiblefuel

Thought about it but why bother, it was such an idiotic post(s).

Instead I decided to go out in my gold plated boots and kick homeless people.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Don't worry. I'm at the bank every day and I agree with you.

Damn it.

I'm cooking up a conspiracy theory on the Trudeau family being the acting hand of international bankers in Canada: Pierre sold us out in 1974 and now Justin is burying us even further. Any thoughts?