GDT: The Alberta Election 2012 - The Morning After - PC Majority Government

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Yeah reducing taxes is a bad idea to deal with surpluses, especially one based of resource revenue. When the money is gone and taxes have to rise again, you've only infuriated the population. Because resource revenue isn't forever, I'd prefer any surplus money go into the Heritage Fund. In the future, that could help keep taxes lower when revenues from resources fall.

There is just something obscene about over taxing when the money isn't needed. Kind of like all those years we over paid into EI and the extra money was just plowed into general revenue to be wasted as the Liberals saw fit.

Leave the $$$ in my pocket. Tax for what you need with perhaps a small cushion for a rainy day... but don't over tax me repeatedly because you are afraid of having to raise taxes when revenues drop. I don't mind a tax increase if its justified and the taxes we give now are spent prudently.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I think the only move Danielle could have made is asked both of them to withdraw from consideration. I don't know how you fire unelected party members. Perhaps she could have booted them from the party and forced them to run as independants, but I don't know if she's allowed to do that.

Don't see why not. Parties throw people out of their caucus all the time and they have to sit as independents. ... well not all the time but it isn't unheard of.

Someone does not have the right to a WRP membership. Its a privilege... kind of what my old man used to say about my staying alive while living under his roof..

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Rerun

There is just something obscene about over taxing when the money isn't needed. Kind of like all those years we over paid into EI and the extra money was just plowed into general revenue to be wasted as the Liberals saw fit.

Leave the $$$ in my pocket. Tax for what you need with perhaps a small cushion for a rainy day... but don't over tax me repeatedly because you are afraid of having to raise taxes when revenues drop. I don't mind a tax increase if its justified and the taxes we give now are spent prudently.

Many in this forum decry the return of surplus dollars to citizens as a waste.

Most of those same people insist we have severely underfunded education, health care, and infrastructure.

Sadly, nobody can remember where the last 80 billion went. What about the next 80 billion?

[GP_Matt]

Throwing someone out of the party isn't that easy. You need a reason, a meeting announced in advance and a hearing of sorts. From there a decision is made but it is subject to an appeal to the board of directors. I don't think that could be accomplished in the final days of the campaign.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

But the problem with that approach is there's no way to guarentee prices won't drop. It most likely won't but if it does then what?

You provide for it in the budget, using your best guess on the future.. All budgets are uncertain... they are best guess scenarios.

I just hate when parties base their budgets on totally out to lunch, extremely conservative revenue predictions. Government is like anyone else... if they have the money they'll find ways to spend it.

How may times have you (not necessarily you... but everyone) worked in a dept for a company/government and you were allocated x number of $$$ to run the dept and at the end of the year you still had $$$ left over so the dept was looking for ways to spend the $$$ because if they didn't their budgets would be reduced next year. Usually the surplus was spent foolishly.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Rerun

There is just something obscene about over taxing when the money isn't needed. Kind of like all those years we over paid into EI and the extra money was just plowed into general revenue to be wasted as the Liberals saw fit.

I only would view it as overtaxing if the surplus was only from tax revenue, but any surplus is almost certainly coming from resource revenue so as such I would find taxes to be at the correct level.

When it comes to tossing party members, again this one is kind of unique because they're candidates and not MLAs. Danielle kinda made the distinction when she said if any of her MLAs were racist or bigoted she'd fire them. As just a candidate, its kind of a grey area where you technically aren't in a fireable position, so I think all she could really do for immediate results is ask them to step down.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Rerun

There is just something obscene about over taxing when the money isn't needed. Kind of like all those years we over paid into EI and the extra money was just plowed into general revenue to be wasted as the Liberals saw fit.

Leave the $$$ in my pocket. Tax for what you need with perhaps a small cushion for a rainy day... but don't over tax me repeatedly because you are afraid of having to raise taxes when revenues drop. I don't mind a tax increase if its justified and the taxes we give now are spent prudently.

It's not obscene at all when you consider these revenues are for non renewable resource rents.

Those revenues are here now but won't be in the future. The responsible and fiscally conservative thing to do south all of those revenues is to save them and let it grow as a fund to build the capacity and ability to transition is to a (not so distant) future where those rents go away.

To the"fiscal conservatives"that advocate for lower taxes to be spent out of the public purse by leeching away the value of a resource that belongs to all Albertans including future Albertans you are the worst kind of spend thrift.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk 2

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I agree with some of that but not all of that.

4) Pissing away money on pet projects, currying favors with political friends and special causes.

Why can't we just make a commitment to education primary, secondary, and research and let the increased intelligence the province gains decide for itself the direction of a future economy. I'd rather we have a good educational system and saved money in the Heritage giving us a future budgetary advantage than having government sponsored economic diversity programs. A prosperous economic future isn't going to be blueprinted on the desk of a government bureaucrat.

AOSTRA says hello (although industry played a huge role it was Government leadership that made it happen...sorry)

Although in principle I generally agree with you...

[Rerun]

Correct me if I'm wrong but government obtain revenue from two scources... taxes and resources.

Now I'm not an accountant but I assume you determine your tax rate after determining what your resource revenue will be. By deliberately low balling your resource revenue figure you are left with taxing your citizens at a higher rate than necessary in order to meet your budget predictions.

Thats not right. Use a reasonable figure (not a worse case scenario figure) in your resource revenue prediction and taxes will be lower thereby attracting investors and entrepreneurs to this province thereby adding to the tax base for when resource $$$ begin to decrease due to scarcity of the said resource.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Rerun

You provide for it in the budget, using your best guess on the future.. All budgets are uncertain... they are best guess scenarios.

I just hate when parties base their budgets on totally out to lunch, extremely conservative revenue predictions. Government is like anyone else... if they have the money they'll find ways to spend it.

How may times have you (not necessarily you... but everyone) worked in a dept for a company/government and you were allocated x number of $$$ to run the dept and at the end of the year you still had $$$ left over so the dept was looking for ways to spend the $$$ because if they didn't their budgets would be reduced next year. Usually the surplus was spent foolishly.

Oil is just far to volatile a commodity to be able to properly guess its value. One event could send the price skyrocketing and one event could send the price plumetting. Add in those damned speculators and there are too many variables that can affect the price.

[Suave]

Originally Posted by Rerun

You are assuming that the price of oil and natural gas, which is the primary resource revenue in Alberta, is going to drop significantly. Highly unlikely.

No that hasn't happened at all at times over the past 10 years. Who would have thought of $2 natural gas seven years ago.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Correct me if I'm wrong but government obtain revenue from two scources... taxes and resources.

Now I'm not an accountant but I assume you determine your tax rate after determining what your resource revenue will be. By deliberately low balling your resource revenue figure you are left with taxing your citizens at a higher rate than necessary in order to meet your budget predictions.

Thats not right. Use a reasonable figure (not a worse case scenario figure) in your resource revenue prediction and taxes will be lower thereby attracting investors and entrepreneurs to this province thereby adding to the tax base for when resource $$$ begin to decrease due to scarcity of the said resource.

The current government does exactly that. Hugely overestimates future commodity revenue to claim they have a 'balanced budget' and don't need to raise taxes. And this was before the multi-billion dollar campaign pledges. But there's no way their revenue estimates will be anywhere near actual.

Everyone and their dog knows that the only real options left to the Redford PC's are more deficits or tax increases.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

I am under the impression that the royalty rates from the Oilsands are scheduled to increase soon (they are 1% until industry gets its capital investment returned...then the royalties increase to 25% I think). I could be off on this...anyone care to validate?

IF that is true and IF industry has made their money back then we are going to get lots of revenue from the Oilsands. As the only revenue to date has been from the indirect economic activity and the token royalty.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

I am under the impression that the royalty rates from the Oilsands are scheduled to increase soon (they are 1% until industry gets its capital investment returned...then the royalties increase to 25% I think). I could be off on this...anyone care to validate?

IF that is true and IF industry has made their money back then we are going to get lots of revenue from the Oilsands. As the only revenue to date has been from the indirect economic activity and the token royalty.

IF they are lucky, they might get enough Oilsands revenue to offset the huge declines in Natural Gas royalties.

But probably not.

[Suave]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

I am under the impression that the royalty rates from the Oilsands are scheduled to increase soon (they are 1% until industry gets its capital investment returned...then the royalties increase to 25% I think). I could be off on this...anyone care to validate?

IF that is true and IF industry has made their money back then we are going to get lots of revenue from the Oilsands. As the only revenue to date has been from the indirect economic activity and the token royalty.

2010/2011 was the first year that the majority of resource revenues came from Oil sands.


Man I wish photobucket wouldn't scale down the picture. If you can't read it, green is oil, blue is gas, yellow is oil sands (synthetic crude) and red is other resource revenue.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

What is Red? And it looks like the main difference is gas prices are in the crapper which isn't likely to change anytime in the near (or distant) future.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I agree with this sentiment (Especially the part about making fun of Canucks fans). Maybe a huge problem with politics today is that it's become a different kind of sporting match where supporters throw on their colors and support their party like a sports fan supports their team. The only problem is that politics is supposed to be about running a government that has effects on how people live their lives and it's not innocently over after election night.

Unlike in sports where people stand by their team even if they have a bunch of diving losers playing for them, in politics when 'your' party starts resembling more what you do not support than what you do support you're actually supposed to switch sides.

Related: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1967630/

A campaign is a war of words to determine who governs. It is much more than a battle of ideas, because human beings are much more than thinking machines. - Tom Flanagan

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by kn

I heard Smith on Rutherford this morning and she mentioned she read a tweet from a nurse who wished Danielle would be shot in a drive-by shooting and brought to her ward so that she could exercise her conscience and refuse to treat her.

It was from Facebook and you can see more on that here: http://janemorgan.blogspot.ca/2012/0...o-too-far.html

ps: I'm just catching up on this thread, decided not to multi-quote. Might stack up a couple posts in a row.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I am going to bring this up with the party and I think that First Lady alluded to it but I am not sure what the options were. The candidate was elected by the members of the local constituency association to represent the Wildrose in the upcoming election. Does the party then have the option to have his name removed from the ballot? What if the ballot is printed, can they ask elections Alberta to strike out his party affiliation on the ballot?
I am not trying to pick a fight or debate the actions, I am really just not sure what options the party had.

At the point this came out (after nomination deadline) it was likely too late to change the ballots. However if they choose not to run the DRO's at each of the polling stations would have a duty to convey that on E-day. Likewise if they had stepped away from running as Wildrose and ran as an independent; Elections Alberta would have to advise the electorate. Perhaps in the form of notices.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I think the only move Danielle could have made is asked both of them to withdraw from consideration.

I don't know whether she did or not. But you can bet your bottom dollar someone, at some point suggested this to them. It boggles my mind that they didn't step down.