|
Hahahah - check out this great t-shirt on ebay (pg. 2)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| DigiNut |
Haha, if you like the shirt, read the book. :p
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
If the Liberals ended up with a lower surplus (or a deficit), everyone would be calling them fiscally incompetent...now there's a much larger surplus and they're liars and deceivers, "cheating" people out their tax money :rolleyes: |
BS - nobody's upset that we had a surplus, they're upset that the surplus wasn't given back to us or applied to anything useful! It just went straight into political pockets! |
|
|
| MarkT |
surplus = good when we have a massive debt. Doesn't the gov't almost always apply it against the debt when there is a surplus anyway?
problem is...most people don't give a about the debt...they think it doesn't affect them...so the most people will think " the debt, give me a tax break if there's a surplus" :rolleyes: |
|
|
| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
surplus = good when we have a massive debt. Doesn't the gov't almost always apply it against the debt when there is a surplus anyway?
problem is...most people don't give a about the debt...they think it doesn't affect them...so the most people will think " the debt, give me a tax break if there's a surplus" :rolleyes: |
Dude, I myself have mentioned a few times on here how crippling our debt is, and how the interest on our debt constitutes more than a third of tax collections. You're right, most people don't seem to understand the concept of a debt.
I don't think it's actually getting applied to the debt, though. I mean, that logic is like saying that your company had a net income of $100,000 this year so therefore they have reduced the debts on their bankloans. Well it doesn't work that way, the company has to actually pay the bank!
Has there been an official statement made that this was applied toward the national debt? If so, then I stand corrected, and they did exactly the right thing (now all they need to do is deregulate *everything* and we'll be one step toward financial recovery :))
Edit: what am I talking about, this is actually wrong. If a surplus is going to be applied to the national debt, it should by definition lead to a tax cut the next year because the interest will be lower and the government will require less money to perform all the same services. If we pay off 3% of our debt then we should get about a 1% tax cut, simply due to the economics of the situation. |
|
|
| ShadoWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by Durafei
Jayx1 I don't know what you are complaining about.. I'm currently living in California - state with one of the largest GDPs in the world. And.. cost of living is MUCH more expensive than in Toronto; taxes, while slighly lower are still very high; and finally it's almost impossible to afford a house. Also half the population lives very poorly.
So stop ya bitchin' and enjoy living in Canada. |
That has more to do with urban vs. rural rather than US vs. Canada. |
|
|
| StereoPrincess |
hee hee, that's a funny T-Shirt.
We should all wear it at Income Tax time.
PS. Why they hell is this thread turned all serious? |
|
|
| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by StereoPrincess
PS. Why they hell is this thread turned all serious? |
what did you excpect? =) |
|
|
| DJ_Elyot |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Dude, I myself have mentioned a few times on here how crippling our debt is, and how the interest on our debt constitutes more than a third of tax collections. You're right, most people don't seem to understand the concept of a debt.
I don't think it's actually getting applied to the debt, though. I mean, that logic is like saying that your company had a net income of $100,000 this year so therefore they have reduced the debts on their bankloans. Well it doesn't work that way, the company has to actually pay the bank!
Has there been an official statement made that this was applied toward the national debt? If so, then I stand corrected, and they did exactly the right thing (now all they need to do is deregulate *everything* and we'll be one step toward financial recovery :))
Edit: what am I talking about, this is actually wrong. If a surplus is going to be applied to the national debt, it should by definition lead to a tax cut the next year because the interest will be lower and the government will require less money to perform all the same services. If we pay off 3% of our debt then we should get about a 1% tax cut, simply due to the economics of the situation. |
Last year the consolidated federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments pulled in 459 billion of revenue (of which about 350 billion was from taxes) and spent 50 billion on debt charges. Where did you get that 1/3 from? It's maybe 1/3 of personal income taxes... but there is other income that the government uses to pay off the debt. I doubt that a 3% debt reduction would reduce taxes by as much as 1%. Maybe 0.3%-0.5% at most, because our taxes go to so many other things.
source: StatsCan |
|
|
| Jayx1 |
$50 Billion a year is a hell of a lot of MRI scans, Highway projects, Eye exams (which are about to become delisted meaning we are getting two tier healthcare).
They are also worth about 200 rusty submarines per year for the navy etc etc.
Just think how much money we are wasting per year just on interest payments for the debt. People dont get it. We could have all the medicare we want, a great infrastructure, a great navy AND lower taxes if we paid off the stupid debt.
This was Mike Harris' idea with all his cuts (everyone had to contribute something for the cause)
Those lefties who see 9 Billion dollars as a free for all are very short sighted indeed. |
|
|
| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ_Elyot
Last year the consolidated federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments pulled in 459 billion of revenue (of which about 350 billion was from taxes) and spent 50 billion on debt charges. Where did you get that 1/3 from? It's maybe 1/3 of personal income taxes... but there is other income that the government uses to pay off the debt. I doubt that a 3% debt reduction would reduce taxes by as much as 1%. Maybe 0.3%-0.5% at most, because our taxes go to so many other things.
source: StatsCan |
Personal income tax is precisely what I was talking about (we'll NEVER see tax breaks anywhere else), except that I actually understated the figure. Federal personal income taxes bring in just under $90 billion per year. Interest on our $547 billion debt is just above $40 billion per year, which actually makes 44% or nearly half, not a third. (This is using statics from 2002 because accurate statistics from 2003 and later are not available yet, or you have to pay for them).
Do the math. If you knock $20 billion out of that debt, it's about $8 billion less that the government needs in tax money, and could go to a corresponding personal income tax cut with absolutely no economic side effects.
This is a win-win situation - paying off the debt is only a one-year sacrifice, because the following year there can either be a tax cut or spending increase with no repercussions at all. |
|
|
| Jayx1 |
| Yeah but lefties see it as more money to give away to their friends and to buy more speed bumps with. |
|
|
| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Yeah but lefties see it as more money to give away to their friends and to buy more speed bumps with. |
Being left-wing shouldn't necessarily mean being economically dysfunctional - it's the "borrow, tax, and spend" socialists that are, because they think money grows on trees. I'm sure there are some left-leaning folks who understand the concepts of deficit and debt; otherwise, everyone left of center would have declared personal bankruptcy by now.
The Liberal government, on the other hand, is another issue, and I believe it's been reported that many of them actually ARE economically dysfunctional and have bad credit/huge debts. So it's no wonder that they put our country in the same position.
Mike Harris understood this, his cuts were established as a sacrifice that we all had to make in order to finance the debt, but sadly most Canadians only saw it as a blow to their precious social programs and thus voted him out before he had a chance to finish the job. Too bad, one more term and we probably could have made out like Alberta. |
|
|
| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
I'm sure there are some left-leaning folks who understand the concepts of deficit and debt; otherwise, everyone left of center would have declared personal bankruptcy by now.
|
Politically speaking name one.
The only ones i can think of are the Greens who seem to have economic conservative values amongst their left leaning ways. They are very issue oriented but seem to be the true centre party in Canada.
It certainly isnt the Lieberals or the NDP! Or even our wonderful leftie Mayor Miller. |
|
|
|
|
