Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I'm not opposed to this but raising it 3% sure gives the UCP a nice hammer.

They're already slamming it as a 38% increase, which technically is correct. They'll absolutely try to use it as a hammer.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

The only way we can have lower mortgage rates in AB than everywhere else is with government money. A guarantee from the Alberta govt is not as good as the existing guarantee most mortgages have from the Canadian government (via CMHC) so adds 0 value and wouldn't lower interest rates for Albertans. I guess they could build an Alberta version, get licensed, and charge lower fees than cmhc. That would help Alberta buyers a bit but not lower interest rates.

There are 2 ways to lower interest rates, and as someone who believes the correct interest rate for the AB economy is often different then for Canada as whole I would support neither of them:
1) the AB government lends money for mortgages at a lower-than-market rate, either directly or by buying mortgages as low rates from banks
2) the AB government directly subsidizes mortgage interest, either with payments to borrowers or lenders.

Those are the only 2 choices, they're equivalent, and they both suck.

Assuming there's actually some kind of coherence in what she's thinking/saying (which is a stretch), I'd assume she'd be wanting to make it so people in Alberta don't need to meet the stress test and/or have looser GDS/TDS standards.

So the actual rates paid wouldn't be any lower, but people would qualify for more money. How that helps anything, I have no idea though.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

They're already slamming it as a 38% increase, which technically is correct. They'll absolutely try to use it as a hammer.

And yet small businesses would see a 100% decrease in corporate taxes. I'm sure the UCP will address it as such.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by Muta

Bets on when TBA/subsidiary UCP organization/Lead Muppet Danielle Smith start using Make Alberta Great Again as their slogan if they win?

It certainly looks (and sounds) like the UCP wants to move Alberta into US style healthcare with US style banking and US style criminal justice. And when I say "US Style" I mean Red State economics with Red State social programs, Red State civil liberties and Red State policing.

I'm not sure if it's on purpose, but the messaging seems to be there.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

It certainly looks (and sounds) like the UCP wants to move Alberta into US style healthcare with US style banking and US style criminal justice. And when I say "US Style" I mean Red State economics with Red State social programs, Red State civil liberties and Red State policing.

I'm not sure if it's on purpose, but the messaging seems to be there.

How could it not be on purpose? It is their platform, to the extent they actually have a platform/plan.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Izzle

In both cases, wouldn't the Albertan government need to raise taxes? Or they would risk running deficits. Besides, it's not like they can just go and print money to account for the shortfall.

The second option for sure would immediately cost the gov't a bunch of money, so would either require more taxes, less spending elsewhere, or a deficit.

The first option is more complicated - they could theoretically borrow a bunch of 5 year money (their existing bonds yield about 3.5% for 5 year so that's a good guess at the cost) and then lend it out at that price or a bit higher, which is a big savings compared to current rates. If they only made CMHC loans they wouldn't lose money on defaults (other than whatever it cost them to make the loans).

All that said, my confidence that they could do a better job at underwriting risk and controlling costs than the existing banks is not very high, so I think the "we don't need to make a profit" savings would likely be outweighed by "we're a bunch of idiots and everything we do turns to crap" costs. But YMMV on that prediction.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Assuming there's actually some kind of coherence in what she's thinking/saying (which is a stretch), I'd assume she'd be wanting to make it so people in Alberta don't need to meet the stress test and/or have looser GDS/TDS standards.

So the actual rates paid wouldn't be any lower, but people would qualify for more money. How that helps anything, I have no idea though.

That's even dumber than I assumed her plan was!

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Slava

She reminds me more and more of Social Credit. Just hare-brained, wacky ideas that will never work and are economically insane. Couple that with the appalling social comments and policies and I just can't believe the NDP isn't winning this in a walk.

I guess a large number of Albertans are stupid as ####

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I guess a large number of Albertans are stupid as ####

We are not allowed to say that. It hurts peoples feelings and makes them vote UCP.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by belsarius

We are not allowed to say that. It hurts peoples feelings and makes them vote UCP.

#### those ####s

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

And yet small businesses would see a 100% decrease in corporate taxes. I'm sure the UCP will address it as such.

Didn't they limit that to $100k though?

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Slava

Didn't they limit that to $100k though?

You're going to have to provide an official source because what does "100k" mean? On profit? On revenue?

Didn't find a single article so far that has "100k" limitation information yet.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

You're going to have to provide an official source because what does "100k" mean? On profit? On revenue?

Didn't find a single article so far that has "100k" limitation information yet.

Oh I misread that part of that screenshot. I read it as 0% tax for businesses under $100,000 - but it actually meant that the rate change would affect 100,000 small businesses I think.

"Reduce Small Business Tax Rate to 0% for 100,000 small Businesses"

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

You're going to have to provide an official source because what does "100k" mean? On profit? On revenue?

Didn't find a single article so far that has "100k" limitation information yet.

Well, hence it being a question. If I had something other than a screenshot of their "costed platform" (which is a whole other conversation), I suppose I would know this easily.

[Ozy_Flame]

Yeah that's what I think I heard in passing - it would affect 100,000 businesses. But confirmation is key.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://twitter.com/user/status/1658759766834053120


Why not our own military, too? She also seems committed to endless sprawl, so that's another poor policy she supports.


Has she come up with even one good actionable idea in all her ramblings?

Why not our own country???

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Why not our own country???

We're seeing the Endgame now

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

The only way we can have lower mortgage rates in AB than everywhere else is with government money. A guarantee from the Alberta govt is not as good as the existing guarantee most mortgages have from the Canadian government (via CMHC) so adds 0 value and wouldn't lower interest rates for Albertans. I guess they could build an Alberta version, get licensed, and charge lower fees than cmhc. That would help Alberta buyers a bit but not lower interest rates.

There are 2 ways to lower interest rates, and as someone who believes the correct interest rate for the AB economy is often different then for Canada as whole I would support neither of them:
1) the AB government lends money for mortgages at a lower-than-market rate, either directly or by buying mortgages as low rates from banks
2) the AB government directly subsidizes mortgage interest, either with payments to borrowers or lenders.

Those are the only 2 choices, they're equivalent, and they both suck.

Could they make mortgage interest tax-deductible or do federal rules apply? Just a different form or government subsidies but more in line with their American leanings.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I guess a large number of Albertans are stupid as ####

I love to hear comments from the the political minority directed to the establishment

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Well the 8% rate combined with the federal rate is reasonably competitive across most jurisdictions, which was the point of cutting it to that rate in the first place. Increasing it becomes less competitive and decreasing it becomes more competitive. Because some businesses can choose where to locate corporately and how they are structured, the relationship between increasing the rate and decreasing the rate isn't linear. Decreasing the rate doesn't decrease the tax revenue as much as the multiplier of the rate times corporate profit in the province because all things being equal, more businesses will choose to be incorporated here and the opposite is true on the other end, increasing it isn't going to bring in as much revenue as the multiplier of the rate increase and current corporate profits.

You have to really want to have your business in Alberta or you have to be in Alberta because of the business you are in.

You could put taxes at 0% in Alberta and the vast majority savings would be wiped out in wages you'd have to pay to get people to move there.