MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No one is saying that they can’t find any ways to save money, it’s when you imply that there is enough savings available to not have a significant impact on the services provided and that it’s not a reasonable expectation for budgets in growing municipalities or businesses to increase where you’re entering a fantasy world.

The vagueness of your hypothetical scenario examples and rhetorical questions don’t help. “If you save money does that mean you have to spend it?”. Obviously the answer is no you don’t have to do anything with that money, but that doesn’t mean there may not be consequences to that decision.



Look GGG I know you enjoy playing devil’s advocate but you know curves’ schtick by this point. Pointing out that you can find savings isn’t an issue, pointing it out while acting as though there won’t be an impact, while plausible, isn’t likely and comes off as a similar argument to trickle down economics. Plausible but unlikely and certainly not a guaranteed outcome.

It should be readily apparent to anyone based on how curves started going off on this tangent in response to what was basically a sarcastic fat joke directed at a councillor that he’s just driving a narrative and not really engaging in a good faith discussion. As he typically does. I like hearing different perspectives, especially from someone who based on their posting history may in fact be the most interesting person in the world, but I don’t like bull#### arguments that are clearly made in bad faith.

There is a financial trap that happens in finance that is just reality. Ever increasing budgets and costs, no matter who's budget, plays a destructive role. You can't continue to increase budgets without it having a material affect on your citizens, your business, your household or whatever.

People are trying to justify increases all the time but what is the appropriate increase in any government, business, household budget? If increases are such positive things, why are we not increasing them overall by a larger degree?

I fully agree with you that in a lot of ways we as citizens here are to blame for the increases as we are all the recipients of the services. The opposite can also be true, are the increases in these budgets being put to their best use?

City officials are actually telling us that the city finances are a concern, but they are in charge of the finances. Who is to actually blame for the current situation? You? Me? Let's not forget we are going into an election year which is where the big push for the 3%+ increase came. Wait until next year when the increase will be significantly higher and it will be in higher years.

I get that people are arguing that tax increases are needed but it's as cuts in budgets are an absurd concept in government's.

Does anybody think that this councils popularity has anything to do with taxes and the financial situation? People understand that taxes are needed for services but are services actually better? Are we really improving things on the ground? Are we sure that the city is a fine running financial machine?

People can discount this type of talk all they want but the reality is right in front of us. Ever increasing budgets for everything has gotten us what exactly for our tax dollars? Does Calgary really have an amazing transit system? Is our road infrastructure first class? Are we leading Canada and other larger cities in reductions in crime, social disorder, opioid crisis?

If we are being honest about services, are we really getting amazing value in all aspects?

[Wormius]

Curves, those are a lot of words to really say nothing. You have lived here a long time, I presume, what specifically would you do that would result in a meaningful impact? We have had councillors of al types, if there was something actually meaningful, don’t you think they would have identified something? I am talking about actually significant, not penny pinching over arts installations or whatever the populist zeitgeist has people foaming at the mouths over.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Give concrete, specific examples then that illustrate your point.

I am not going humor you. I have provided basic things that can be looked at without even getting controversial like mass layoffs or crazy cuts. If you really look for cost reductions, they are always found, everywhere and from everyone! This isn't hard to do. I am sure you have done it in your own finances in your life. If citizens are not suppose to notice a 3% tax increase for improve services, would we really miss a 2% reduction on costs and services?

Balance sheet strength matters no matter what. City leaders are telling us that Calgary's budget is in trouble. We should probably listen when we can or else you get into a situation like Toronto or other cities that are beyond a crisis.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Curves, those are a lot of words to really say nothing. You have lived here a long time, I presume, what specifically would you do that would result in a meaningful impact? We have had councillors of al types, if there was something actually meaningful, don’t you think they would have identified something? I am talking about actually significant, not penny pinching over arts installations or whatever the populist zeitgeist has people foaming at the mouths over.

No, because they are not actively looking for cost reductions in all departments. They are not incentivized to so they don't! This goes on for so long before things go south, as they currently are! We have burned through our rainy day funds and it has not rained.

If they increased taxes by a much larger margin, your still obligated to pay them and if your not a property owner, your landlord will increase your rent and businesses will increase their costs.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by curves2000

No, because they are not actively looking for cost reductions in all departments. They are not incentivized to so they don't! This goes on for so long before things go south, as they currently are! We have burned through our rainy day funds and it has not rained.

If they increased taxes by a much larger margin, your still obligated to pay them and if your not a property owner, your landlord will increase your rent and businesses will increase their costs.

What evidence do you have for these assertions?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by curves2000

There is a financial trap that happens in finance that is just reality. Ever increasing budgets and costs, no matter who's budget, plays a destructive role. You can't continue to increase budgets without it having a material affect on your citizens, your business, your household or whatever.

This is getting redundant. Without cutting services a growing population base will increase the servicing budget for that base, that’s just a natural outcome. The same can be said for a growing business. Neither of those budget increases should be blindly characterized as a lack of efficiency.

People are trying to justify increases all the time but what is the appropriate increase in any government, business, household budget? If increases are such positive things, why are we not increasing them overall by a larger degree?

There’s no cookie cutter answer to your question because different governments, businesses and households all have different needs and revenues to work with.

I fully agree with you that in a lot of ways we as citizens here are to blame for the increases as we are all the recipients of the services. The opposite can also be true, are the increases in these budgets being put to their best use?

I never blamed the citizens. That’s kind of ridiculous to be honest.

City officials are actually telling us that the city finances are a concern, but they are in charge of the finances. Who is to actually blame for the current situation? You? Me? Let's not forget we are going into an election year which is where the big push for the 3%+ increase came. Wait until next year when the increase will be significantly higher and it will be in higher years.

You’re constantly trying to assign blame instead of trying to understand why we are in the situation we’re in. You could literally blame every politician ever for why we’re in the situation we’re in but it doesn’t take into account some factors like the collapse in oil and gas 10 years ago that made downtown office vacancies skyrocket.

I get that people are arguing that tax increases are needed but it's as cuts in budgets are an absurd concept in government's.

You appear to be the only one pushing an all or nothing approach.

Does anybody think that this councils popularity has anything to do with taxes and the financial situation? People understand that taxes are needed for services but are services actually better? Are we really improving things on the ground? Are we sure that the city is a fine running financial machine?

The popularity of politicians is a bit of a red herring, there’s very few politicians who are elected by a landslide.

People can discount this type of talk all they want but the reality is right in front of us. Ever increasing budgets for everything has gotten us what exactly for our tax dollars? Does Calgary really have an amazing transit system? Is our road infrastructure first class? Are we leading Canada and other larger cities in reductions in crime, social disorder, opioid crisis?

You’re comparing apples with oranges because there are a number of jurisdictions that are taxed at both lower and higher rates. It’s your continued attempts to oversimplify complex matters that I find takes the credibility away from what you’re saying.

If we are being honest about services, are we really getting amazing value in all aspects?

Services can always be better, on the other hand they can also be worse. If you want the best services in the world it’s not unreasonable to expect that you’re unlikely to achieve that through fat trimming alone. What our goal should be is to provide the best services levels within what we consider to be affordable, even if that means we pay slightly more or less for that service than a comparable jurisdiction.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I am not going humor you. I have provided basic things that can be looked at without even getting controversial like mass layoffs or crazy cuts. If you really look for cost reductions, they are always found, everywhere and from everyone! This isn't hard to do. I am sure you have done it in your own finances in your life. If citizens are not suppose to notice a 3% tax increase for improve services, would we really miss a 2% reduction on costs and services?

Balance sheet strength matters no matter what. City leaders are telling us that Calgary's budget is in trouble. We should probably listen when we can or else you get into a situation like Toronto or other cities that are beyond a crisis.

I don’t know, would we miss a 2% reduction? That depends largely on where it’s coming from and what the actual impact is, something we could evaluate if you armed yourself with more than empty rhetoric and meaningless platitudes about budgeting.

You can play armchair policymaker all you want, but until you “humour me” by providing concrete examples to illustrate your point, there’s really nothing there. Like, zero substance. And I don’t really understand why, if this is an issue you’re presenting yourself as having put thought into, you can’t actually articulate anything meaningful. “Basic examples” are just code for generic platitudes you didn’t put any thought into.

I get that saying things like “cut the budget” feels good because it makes people feel like they’re really smart without having to do any actual intellectual leg work or even really put any thought into a subject but why would anyone take anyone who is reliant solely on platitudes seriously?

“This isn’t hard to do” - It might be, but you’ve illustrated you don’t know how hard it would be because you haven’t actually thought about it.

Just look at where some of the additional money is going:
- Potholes: a noted problem this year that was a hot topic for complaints
- Inglewood pool: Now open through 2026 after protests for its closure
- Water infrastructure: Anyone know why they would be spending money on this after this year?

Then when you consider the fact that 35% of the city’s property taxes go to the province, which is touting a 4.6 billion surplus while offloading extra costs to the city without reducing their share of the property tax, it looks a little more difficult.

The city is trying to fund increases towards things that people are very loudly telling them we need, while dealing with inflation, immigration, and a hostile province. So yeah, seems kind of hard to just “cut the budget.”

But you’re to prove you’ve actually thought about this at all and provide a single concrete example as to how. Even the councils saying so can’t, but they’re admitting they can’t because they don’t know.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I don’t know, would we miss a 2% reduction? That depends largely on where it’s coming from and what the actual impact is, something we could evaluate if you armed yourself with more than empty rhetoric and meaningless platitudes about budgeting.

Is this a 2% reduction from the current budget or a 2% reduction after adjusting for population growth and inflation?

[topfiverecords]

Some of these long posts could probably have used a department of efficiency to execute some cuts.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

Is this a 2% reduction from the current budget or a 2% reduction after adjusting for population growth and inflation?

It isn’t hard, just cut the budget!

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What evidence do you have for these assertions?

Simple logic perhaps? Businesses and households reduce costs, expenses and budgets everyday. I am 100% sure you have done as well in your lifetime.

The city and other government's wherever could reduce expenses and budgets, they just choose to not to the same degree as households and businesses. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Businesses, corporations and individuals literally slash and burn budgets and reduce cost but your telling me the City of Calgary can't reduce costs 5%.

People forget that tax increases need to be paid by legal obligations. Consumer price increases by businesses are a choice. That is the difference between the city and business.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Simple logic perhaps? Businesses and households reduce costs, expenses and budgets everyday. I am 100% sure you have done as well in your lifetime.

The city and other government's wherever could reduce expenses and budgets, they just choose to not to the same degree as households and businesses. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Businesses, corporations and individuals literally slash and burn budgets and reduce cost but your telling me the City of Calgary can't reduce costs 5%.

People forget that tax increases need to be paid by legal obligations. Consumer price increases by businesses are a choice. That is the difference between the city and business.

How much would it reduce our property taxes for this year’s budget if we cut 5%?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Simple logic perhaps? Businesses and households reduce costs, expenses and budgets everyday. I am 100% sure you have done as well in your lifetime.

The city and other government's wherever could reduce expenses and budgets, they just choose to not to the same degree as households and businesses. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Businesses, corporations and individuals literally slash and burn budgets and reduce cost but your telling me the City of Calgary can't reduce costs 5%.

People forget that tax increases need to be paid by legal obligations. Consumer price increases by businesses are a choice. That is the difference between the city and business.

OK, so then you haven't actually looked to see what processes exist and what has been done in the past. You just assume they haven't done anything, so there must be cutting to do.

[fotze2]

FFS they’ve closed two lanes on 9th again. Nice $67 uber ride today.

Is that work ever gonna be done?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by fotze2

FFS they’ve closed two lanes on 9th again. Nice $67 uber ride today.

Is that work ever gonna be done?

A bus ticket is only $3.70 cents. Gotta find those efficiencies and keep your costs down, even if it means it would have taken you 2 extra hours to get home and prevented you from doing something else that may have been necessary to get done.

Read the room fotze.

[MegaErtz]

Richard Pootmans is stepping down, effective immediately. Would be nice to have a by-election to fill out the final eleven months of his term, but of course his constituents will just have to go without representation.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

A bus ticket is only $3.70 cents. Gotta find those efficiencies and keep your costs down, even if it means it would have taken you 2 extra hours to get home and prevented you from doing something else that may have been necessary to get done.

Read the room fotze.

If I walk to a stop or LRT which would make most sense I probably keel over though.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by fotze2

If I walk to a stop or LRT which would make most sense I probably keel over though.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very efficient at all.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No one is saying that they can’t find any ways to save money, it’s when you imply that there is enough savings available to not have a significant impact on the services provided and that it’s not a reasonable expectation for budgets in growing municipalities or businesses to increase where you’re entering a fantasy world.

The vagueness of your hypothetical scenario examples and rhetorical questions don’t help. “If you save money does that mean you have to spend it?”. Obviously the answer is no you don’t have to do anything with that money, but that doesn’t mean there may not be consequences to that decision.



Look GGG I know you enjoy playing devil’s advocate but you know curves’ schtick by this point. Pointing out that you can find savings isn’t an issue, pointing it out while acting as though there won’t be an impact, while plausible, isn’t likely and comes off as a similar argument to trickle down economics. Plausible but unlikely and certainly not a guaranteed outcome.

It should be readily apparent to anyone based on how curves started going off on this tangent in response to what was basically a sarcastic fat joke directed at a councillor that he’s just driving a narrative and not really engaging in a good faith discussion. As he typically does. I like hearing different perspectives, especially from someone who based on their posting history may in fact be the most interesting person in the world, but I don’t like bull#### arguments that are clearly made in bad faith.

I think you are reading his posts in bad faith and engaging with poor argumentation. Typically your logic is much stronger.

The city of Calgary just delivered a budget with increases below pop growth and inflation. We literally just saw the city hold the line. Now I’m not sure which is more wrong that Curves is complaining the city doesn’t try to hold the line on taxes and needs to start or you claiming it can’t be done.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by curves2000

There is a financial trap that happens in finance that is just reality. Ever increasing budgets and costs, no matter who's budget, plays a destructive role. You can't continue to increase budgets without it having a material affect on your citizens, your business, your household or whatever.

People are trying to justify increases all the time but what is the appropriate increase in any government, business, household budget? If increases are such positive things, why are we not increasing them overall by a larger degree?

I fully agree with you that in a lot of ways we as citizens here are to blame for the increases as we are all the recipients of the services. The opposite can also be true, are the increases in these budgets being put to their best use?

City officials are actually telling us that the city finances are a concern, but they are in charge of the finances. Who is to actually blame for the current situation? You? Me? Let's not forget we are going into an election year which is where the big push for the 3%+ increase came. Wait until next year when the increase will be significantly higher and it will be in higher years.

I get that people are arguing that tax increases are needed but it's as cuts in budgets are an absurd concept in government's.

Does anybody think that this councils popularity has anything to do with taxes and the financial situation? People understand that taxes are needed for services but are services actually better? Are we really improving things on the ground? Are we sure that the city is a fine running financial machine?

People can discount this type of talk all they want but the reality is right in front of us. Ever increasing budgets for everything has gotten us what exactly for our tax dollars? Does Calgary really have an amazing transit system? Is our road infrastructure first class? Are we leading Canada and other larger cities in reductions in crime, social disorder, opioid crisis?

If we are being honest about services, are we really getting amazing value in all aspects?

What tax increase? There was a shift in tax burden from non-res to res and inflation. There was no tax increase.