[herbie]

$1:

Because money is better in the hands of the Government and not in the pockets of Canadians?

Don't use that cliche on me. I sell laptops and cellphones to many parents who buy them for their goddam nine year olds. On credit....

[bootlegga]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

I'd rather that 14 billion dollar shortfall went to people who weren't hoarding it.

Because money is better in the hands of the Government and not in the pockets of Canadians?

If the government had a balanced budget, that might have some merit. But given that they've run a deficit now for five straight years, even AFTER our economy has rebounded better than the rest of the G-8.

It's time to face facts.

The fact is that cutting the GST basically created a structural deficit and as long as they keep cutting taxes - even if spending flatlines - it's not going to get any better.

The government either needs to cut spending significantly (which it won't as evidenced by the last week's budget) or increase taxes.

It like the end of the Simpson's Cat Burglar episode when Homer and company find themselves at the bottom of a deep hole.

"How are we going to get ourselves out now?" Marge asked.

"We'll dig our way out!" Homer shouts.

That seems to be the current government's policy - keep digging instead of asking for a ladder.

In fairness, citizens also need to do their part too - if they want all these services, then they need to pay for them. The problem is too many want to eat the cake and have it too.

[OnTheIce]

bootlegga bootlegga:

If the government had a balanced budget, that might have some merit. But given that they've run a deficit now for five straight years, even AFTER our economy has rebounded better than the rest of the G-8.

It's time to face facts.

The fact is that cutting the GST basically created a structural deficit and as long as they keep cutting taxes - even if spending flatlines - it's not going to get any better.

The government either needs to cut spending significantly (which it won't as evidenced by the last week's budget) or increase taxes.

It like the end of the Simpson's Cat Burglar episode when Homer and company find themselves at the bottom of a deep hole.

"How are we going to get ourselves out now?" Marge asked.

"We'll dig our way out!" Homer shouts.

That seems to be the current government's policy - keep digging instead of asking for a ladder.

In fairness, citizens also need to do their part too - if they want all these services, then they need to pay for them. The problem is too many want to eat the cake and have it too.

Boots, you're being disingenuous when you make comments about the GST.

Let's talk facts.

The first cut game in 2006 when we were in surplus. The second cut same during a fragile financial time. Probably not the best idea that year. However, blaming these tax cuts for the current deficit 5 years later is disingenuous at best as you're ignoring all the other factors that effect our revenues.

People like you love to focus on the negative aspects of the last 6-7 years of the Harper government. People have blamed Harper for the deficit over numberous changes (GST cut, corporate tax cuts), it's whatever is the flavour of the month.

What changes to policy increased the revenues? Are we naive enough to think the ONLY thing that Harper did to effect the government revenues positively or negatively were GST cuts 4-6 years ago?

[bootlegga]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Boots, you're being disingenuous when you make comments about the GST.

Let's talk facts.

The first cut game in 2006 when we were in surplus. The second cut same during a fragile financial time. Probably not the best idea that year. However, blaming these tax cuts for the current deficit 5 years later is disingenuous at best as you're ignoring all the other factors that effect our revenues.

People like you love to focus on the negative aspects of the last 6-7 years of the Harper government. People have blamed Harper for the deficit over numberous changes (GST cut, corporate tax cuts), it's whatever is the flavour of the month.

What changes to policy increased the revenues? Are we naive enough to think the ONLY thing that Harper did to effect the government revenues positively or negatively were GST cuts 4-6 years ago?

I'm not disingenuous at all...as the article notes.

$1:

For a sense of scale, reversing the GST rollback would virtually wipe out next year’s projected federal deficit of $18.7-billion.

Last year before it was $20 some billion or so. However you slice it, if we still charged 7%, the deficit (and the debt added since 2008) would be far smaller, unless of course Harper just kept spending like a drunken sailor. But that would never happen, because he's a conservative and not one of those 'tax and spend liberals' you bitch about all the time here, right?

I know I only took History in university, but by my math 5 years (2008 - 2013) times $14 billion equals $70 BILLION. Heck, even three years is $42 billion - just about enough to pay for the F-35.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a lot of money to me.

But that must be because I don't live in a solid gold house, own a rocket car and eat caviar and drink Dom Perignon like you do!

As I said previously, I don't have a big problem with a deficit in poor economic times, and that's despite Harper's 2008 election promise that he wouldn't go into deficit.

The problem here, like south of the border, is not JUST a spending problem, it's a spending AND revenue problem. Tax cuts over the past decade have stripped the federal government of its ability to pay for the programs people want.

As I said above, it's not entirely Harper & Co's fault - the citizens of this country have to wake up and realize if we want to have a modern military, decent education system, good health care and robust economy that it costs a lot of money - money that we should all be paying, not just future generations who will get stuck with the bill.

I know it would be unpopular, but a hike in the GST would go a long way to solving the deficit in this country.

That's what a good leader does - make the hard decisions and live with the consequences.

[jj2424]

bootlegga bootlegga:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

I'd rather that 14 billion dollar shortfall went to people who weren't hoarding it.

Because money is better in the hands of the Government and not in the pockets of Canadians?

If the government had a balanced budget, that might have some merit. But given that they've run a deficit now for five straight years, even AFTER our economy has rebounded better than the rest of the G-8.

It's time to face facts.

The fact is that cutting the GST basically created a structural deficit and as long as they keep cutting taxes - even if spending flatlines - it's not going to get any better.

The government either needs to cut spending significantly (which it won't as evidenced by the last week's budget) or increase taxes.

It like the end of the Simpson's Cat Burglar episode when Homer and company find themselves at the bottom of a deep hole.

"How are we going to get ourselves out now?" Marge asked.

"We'll dig our way out!" Homer shouts.

That seems to be the current government's policy - keep digging instead of asking for a ladder.

In fairness, citizens also need to do their part too - if they want all these services, then they need to pay for them. The problem is too many want to eat the cake and have it too.

"How are we going to get ourselves out now?" Marge asked.

"We'll dig our way out!" REDford shouts.

[Zipperfish]

jj2424 jj2424:

"How are we going to get ourselves out now?" Marge asked.

"We'll dig our way out!" REDford shouts.

Ha ha ha. ThThat reminds me of the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you'd say.

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

That's what a good leader does - make the hard decisions and live with the consequences.

The reality is that our leaders get elected by making the popular decisions and then letting the next guy live with the consequences.

They wouldn't do this if it were not what we wanted them to do in the first place.

[herbie]

Speaking of taxes, the till in my store died about 10 days ago. Someone told me they had an identical one in their garage they sold me for $50. I just had to reset the GST from 7 to 5%.
So great, we had another power bump and it fried after three days. So I just bought a new one today.
It has preset tax tables. GEE I SURE HOPE those makers in Japan know BC went back to two separate taxes.
And the gov't SAID all the new tills round pennies up and down. They SAID.

We'll see. It's an all day trip to return the damn thing.

[OnTheIce]

bootlegga bootlegga:

I'm not disingenuous at all...as the article notes.

It is, here's why.

You could say the same about any previous tax cuts. You could look back and say that if Chretien/Harper didn't cut corporate taxes and personal taxes we would have had all that money today and our books would be balanced all while ignoring everything else good it may have done.

To lay the blame and focus of deficit reduction at the GST is disingenuous because there's a lot of other factors that could have been changed much the same to bring revenues in line. I also doubt there'd be much praise for Mulroney had the tax helped balance the budgets.

I agree with you on the revenue front. Governments have to stop giving away things to buy votes, much like Harper did with his sports tax credi, removing of tariffs on sports equipment and the GST cuts. It's pandering to those who are going to get you elected.

Sadly, it works in Canada to get you elected.

[bootlegga]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

bootlegga bootlegga:

I'm not disingenuous at all...as the article notes.

It is, here's why.

You could say the same about any previous tax cuts. You could look back and say that if Chretien/Harper didn't cut corporate taxes and personal taxes we would have had all that money today and our books would be balanced all while ignoring everything else good it may have done.

To lay the blame and focus of deficit reduction at the GST is disingenuous because there's a lot of other factors that could have been changed much the same to bring revenues in line. I also doubt there'd be much praise for Mulroney had the tax helped balance the budgets.

I agree with you on the revenue front. Governments have to stop giving away things to buy votes, much like Harper did with his sports tax credi, removing of tariffs on sports equipment and the GST cuts. It's pandering to those who are going to get you elected.

Sadly, it works in Canada to get you elected.

As I said earlier here, I support with Keynesian economics, which loosely put say you go into deficit and spend during the bad times, and cut spending and taxes during the good times. Of course, the main point was that if the government borrowed $100 million during the bad times, it would wait until that $100 million was paid off before it cut taxes and stopped borrowing.

Of course, as we both know, almost no government ever does this. They borrow like crazy in the bad times and then as soon as the good times come back, they usually start cutting taxes/creating tax credits/etc to buy votes for the next election. Sometimes they continue borrowing to buy even more votes (Trudeau and Mulroney are prime examples).

As such, I didn't have a problem with tax cuts when we were running a $10 billion+ surplus for most of the first decade of this century. I fully admit I disagreed with the GST cut and thought it should have been an income tax cut instead, but I didn't have a problem with taxes getting cut.

Cutting taxes when we're running a surplus is fine - so long as you don't cut too close to the bone that we have nothing left to pay off debt and cover the cost of inflation in government spending.

The problem was that when Harper got into office, he inherited a $14 billion surplus (give or take) and then cut the GST by two points and boom, there went the surplus, leaving us no extra funding to pay down the debt or cushion our landing in the event of a recession.

As such, I certainly do think that cutting the GST by 2%, while smart politically, has hurt us financially, especially in the long term. That $60-70 billion that would have wound up in government coffers would have softened the crash of 2008-2010 significantly.

Furthermore, we're passing now even more debt (now over $600 billion) onto future generations to deal with, and if we're not careful, we'll wind up right back where we were in the 1990s when our nation was in dire straits financially.

http://www.debtclock.ca/

[smorgdonkey]

jj2424 jj2424:

Chretien thought it was a good idea to get rid of the whole thing.

"I'll kill da GST"!


He's dumber than Harper.

Dat was a slip of da tong.


So...you thought that he really killed it?


Harper is the worst.