What did I say about Budgets?

I have not posted in a while, but by February I was seeing a $50 billion deficit and they have only come out and admitted it now.

I entered adulthood at the end of the Trudeau era, when the next government inherited a mess where government spending was $39 billion dollars more then tax receipts without considering interest on the debt.

I knew nothing but a sluggish economy, grossly declining wages, poor job prospects, companies in serious trouble (it only occurred to me recently that none of the businesses I worked for from 1979 to 1987 survived), excessive housing prices, high tuition and much of this can be blamed on fiscal policy that went wild with spending that greatly improved the lifestyle of some at the gross expense of others.

I was never a big complainer of the high taxes and I truly believed it would come to an end with a stronger Canada, which it did, however, the morons currently elected are throwing all that hard work and sacrifice away and putting Canadian finances back on a perilous path.

Our current leaders truly deserve to have sewage plants named after them, but even that would be more tribute then they deserve.

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The Problem With Housing Development Fees

I have previous written about the unfairness of development fees and now many municipalities find themselves in trouble trying to balance budgets because of their gross irresponsibility in leveling fair taxation.

Without going back and pulling actual figures, I know that in my area (and certainly my reading of news from other areas indicates the same problem) the percent of municipal budgets coming from development fees has been increasing. New developments are paying the whole shot to bring a neighbourhood up to a certain standard on those developments at the same time taxes are paying for similar upgrades to other areas. The new developments are essentially being double taxed because these fees are so excessive.

The fees are tacked on the cost of a home. So, in Vancouver developers have claimed up to $60k of a home is development fees. Does this hurt the established home owner? Hardly, the entire stock of homes goes up a proportional amount. New and existing homes are not priced differently based on the older homes didn't have the excessive development fees and costs to build, but rather relative pricing as to what you get. So, new homes get more expensive, but so do existing homes. The established home owner re-coops that increase through the sale of their home.

The first time buyer see the cost of housing up the full cost of development fees. $60k over 30 years a 6% is $129,600. It is an extra $360/month. This is the burden transfer essentially to younger people. It would probably only cost existing home owners an extra $25-50/month to pay their fair share and not transfer this burden to youth.

But hey, youth are going to be able to pay that, their enormous student loans, the increased tax burden due to an aging population, that extra $25-50/month in property taxes that's going to come now anyways, and while we are at it, we can give them a lecture on their social responsibility while they feed their kids Kraft dinner.

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Political Idiotism on Taxation, Again

This topic is a little stale in terms of current news, Government proposes $60B in tax cuts, with further GST drop, but I never got around to writing about it when it was current and it is so negligent and stupid.

There is a booming economy. The economy will not always be booming. These proposed cuts will NOT be sustainable with a down turn in the economy. It is one thing for an individual to be so ignorant to stretch their resources to the limit in good times and then rightfully deal with the consequences of such imprudent behaviour. It is unacceptable from government and we have a high level of debt because of this kind of negligent behaviour in the past. It is time be responsible and say no to a short term gain for long term pain.

Our collective greater good would be best served by debt reduction and working to ensure we have maneuverability for an economic slow down. The only reasonable thing to do in the whole proposal is to increase the personal tax exemption. That is a tax neutral action that is offset with increased tax revenue due to wage increases. More importantly it is the only thing that reverses some of the gross inequities to the working poor.

I can assure you that the working poor are unlikely to see their income increase by $700 this year and if we have any sense of humanity we should be questioning why anyone who IS working and CAN'T afford to PAY RENT, BUY FOOD and BASIC NECESSITIES is taxed at all at the slave labour minimum wage rates? Indeed, every cent these people get goes directly into the economy because they are trying to live on a deficit level of income despite genius greater than Einstein in budgeting. You simply can not get water out of a stone and they ran out of places to cut spending YEARS ago.

Give me a tax cut and guess where I'm going to spend -- NOT in Canada. I am taking my discretionary income, and going on vacation in another country. Why should tax cuts continue to subsidize this kind of behaviour of the "haves" when we having increasing numbers of working poor lining up at food banks? Giving me a tax break will do zero to stimulate the economy and will increase my ability to take Canadian dollars outside of the country and this is true for where the majority of the proposed tax cuts would go. As a nation we have enormous debt, we should ensure debt is paid back at a faster rate in boom times. Together we will be stronger in an economic down turn.

Better yet, it is high time we took a serious look at where the tax breaks need to be. We have seniors who make up 20% of the population controlling something like 60% of the wealth and we given them an age exemption on top of pensions that they never paid for except for but for a pittance towards it . A pension is something that is supposed to be paid for by those receiving it. At the very least it is high time we got rid of the age exemption and replaced it with a means exemption for the working poor and put some fairness and humanity into the tax system.

How can any nation think they are great when there is such theft of dignity for the working poor?

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Stealing our Children's Future

I live in BC. Our news papers this week boasted that tax cuts work because we had a record win fall in a revenue surplus this past year, and it was significant.

But, here's the truth as I see it. BC's economy was strong in the past because of our commodity based economy. It died a painful death as mines were closed due to poor commodity prices beginning in the 80s.

Commodity prices have been exceptionally strong and the commodity sector has been booming beyond people's wildest expectations. Check out the venture exchange commodity based businesses and read the line-up of Vancouver addresses.

Through this boom that is unmatched in our economic history our provincial debt has increased by $13 billion dollars, from $20 to $33 billion dollars. I am a teacher and I know our wage increases are far below inflation through these boom years. Relative funding for something as important as education has grossly declined through these boom years. Indeed, if you were to contrast our wages to Ontario you would find that BC teachers have a 17% higher workload and a %17 smaller wage, and we have the highest housing costs in Canada. It is enormously scary to see that massive increase in debt and to know we are have stressed important services pretty close to a breaking point, certainly beyond my breaking point as I work towards removing myself from the education sector. It makes me sick to think "what happens in a recession?"

They take credit for their policies for being responsible for our booming economy. $1 copper prices to $3.50 copper has nothing to do with it, it is about their tax cuts. We ought all shudder in our sleep at their inability to assess what has happened beyond their living in box the size of an atom with black hole walls that expand the universe.

So, this year we will see $1.3 billion paying down debt, debt that there was zero excuse to allow to increase in the first place, making us $12 billion further in debt in a booming world economy unprecedented in history.

Furthermore, people ought to know and check out Mr. Campbell's record on debt while mayor of the City of Vancouver.

Debt simply transfers this generations economic responsibility to the next generation and this government has stolen from children at unprecedented levels.

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