Alberta 2017 Budget

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally posted by FraserB


They can't institute a PST without sending it to Albertans for a vote, it would never pass.

Not entirely true, as I understand it. The thing saying a referendum is required for a PST is just a piece of provincial legislation, and the NDP has a majority gov't so it would be a piece of cake to repeal that bit of legislation and introduce a PST referendum-free. Political suicide, of course, but eminently possible.

[ZenOps]

Gotta spend money to spend money.

[bjstare]

Originally posted by ickyflex


Can you tell me what education background you have?

Good one

[J-hop]

Originally posted by RickDaTuner
In all seriousness the budget numbers are in, and if we hit the 70 billion balloon - that will translate into $17k of forced debt for every man woman and child, and that's without taking into account the interest.

It's like Notley hasn't read up on the Don Getty/Ralph Klein regime...

Don't know much about Getty but ol drunky was a disaster. Raped and pillaged the public sector and was praised for it. We've been paying to rebuild ever since....

Then gave us Ralph bucks? What a way to squander a bunch of money. At least that was a one time deal.

I'm interested in what the largest deficit we've ever run previous to this in today's dollars. I can't find that information anywhere

[Gestalt]

It was 1986. Just over 4 billion not corrected for constant dollars. Ralph got lucky later that oil boomed under his watch by over 55%, while he slashed and burned, while the NDP took over as oil revenue tanked by 75%. They are commies, but Ralph sold this province up the river, and as oil revenue rose, he cut royalty rates making sure balancing the books would be harder for future premiers.

I was actually reading about that last night.

Population then was almost half what it is now too.

[Masked Bandit]

In my house, if I make a $1.00 and spend $1.25, that can only go on for so long and it WILL come back to haunt me at some point. If I have no realistic reason to believe my income will go up to $1.35 or higher soon (costs plus payback of borrowed money) then I better damn well start slashing expenses. I expect the people running the province to have at least a touch of common sense.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit
In my house, if I make a $1.00 and spend $1.25, that can only go on for so long and it WILL come back to haunt me at some point. If I have no realistic reason to believe my income will go up to $1.35 or higher soon (costs plus payback of borrowed money) then I better damn well start slashing expenses. I expect the people running the province to have at least a touch of common sense.

The debt will be your children's problem. Similarly, Notley knows they're not going to make it to another term so they may as well screw the next guy over.

[Gestalt]

You aren't the government, can you create your own financing at incredibly cheap rates, with no fixed payment terms? and if you are talking movie night, candy, and ski dood, then of course, cut back.

But when a pipe bursts, your toilet clogs, you better spend as much as you need to, or you are creating a much bigger and costly catastrophic problem later

Such is government. Pulling strings tight on infrastructure, education, social services, job creation, policing, mental health, will have terrible consequences that cost far far more later

We have an income problem, and we need to collect more from what we have. We have to move on, assuming oil may never recover. If it does, that should be a bonus. I can't understand how we failed to balance the budget when oil was 100$

[Masked Bandit]

Originally posted by Gestalt
You aren't the government, can you create your own financing at incredibly cheap rates, with no fixed payment terms? and if you are talking movie night, candy, and ski dood, then of course, cut back.

But when a pipe bursts, your toilet clogs, you better spend as much as you need to, or you are creating a much bigger and costly catastrophic problem later

Such is government. Pulling strings tight on infrastructure, education, social services, job creation, policing, mental health, will have terrible consequences that cost far far more later

We have an income problem, and we need to collect more from what we have. We have to move on, assuming oil may never recover. If it does, that should be a bonus. I can't understand how we failed to balance the budget when oil was 100$

Spending $1.4B to service debt at the CURRENT levels doesn't sound like cheap financing to me. Two years from now after this clown-tastic management balloons debt to over $70B and we're spending $2.3B just to service it, well that looks even worse. Whether it's an individual, municipal, provincial or federal governments, pissing away money on interest brings absolutely zero value to the participants. Debt to cover operating expenses should be illegal.

[ZenOps]

Governments aren't supposed to save money.

They are supposed to spend money on its citizens so that we have the money to decide whether or not we want to spend it or save it.

The US government has saved 8,133 tons of gold for its citizens. The Canadian government has saved 77 ounces for its citizens. Arguably, the Canadian government just gave the citizenry the money to decide what we wanted to spend money on, be it popcorn, beer, HDTV's or nickels.

If governments just saved money and you guys voted me into power, I'd spend it on a 45 foot tall wall between the US and Canada... Or inotherwords, you probably don't want your government saving :P

Logic loop.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by ZenOps
Governments aren't supposed to save money.

They are supposed to spend money on its citizens so that we have the money to decide whether or not we want to spend it or save it.

They are supposed to spend what they have COLLECTED, not spend non-existent money that is borrowed with no plans of repayment.

[suntan]

Originally posted by Gestalt
You aren't the government, can you create your own financing at incredibly cheap rates, with no fixed payment terms?

WTF you fucking moron, that's not how it works AT ALL.

Fucking blow your brains out, you don't use them anyhow.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Gestalt
You aren't the government, can you create your own financing at incredibly cheap rates, with no fixed payment terms? and if you are talking movie night, candy, and ski dood, then of course, cut back.

But when a pipe bursts, your toilet clogs, you better spend as much as you need to, or you are creating a much bigger and costly catastrophic problem later

Such is government. Pulling strings tight on infrastructure, education, social services, job creation, policing, mental health, will have terrible consequences that cost far far more later

We have an income problem, and we need to collect more from what we have. We have to move on, assuming oil may never recover. If it does, that should be a bonus. I can't understand how we failed to balance the budget when oil was 100$

I don't think everyone got problem with infrastructure spending. It's the lack of strategy on debt repayment in a future that income is almost guaranteed to be less as the world phase out fossil fuel.

Bring back health care premium as it were (no the Conservative general revenue tax). And have premium quadruples for population that skip vaccination. Ask any health care professionals, the money spent on anitvaxxers out pace the one who did.

Take out the 2% income tax and bring back 2% PST for 7% total sales tax.

Keep the carbon tax as long as they are proven it's going to green programs like the Calgary Green line.

Cut the management. 1:3 is retarded. It should be more like 1:7 or 10. Too many middle managers.

Originally posted by Gestalt
You aren't the government, can you create your own financing at incredibly cheap rates, with no fixed payment terms?

I don't know what world you live in...... this is not how it works except for Japan in a limited way. Or USA where it go a big gun to force everyone to trade using USD.

Got to have a debt repayment plan in place, don't punt it down the road. I can't do that with any of our loan, why should the government do so. I don't care how cheap loan is. The problem with cheap rate is that it only stay cheap when you don't need it or lender think you can pay it back. I'm up for some loans but only after you keep the house in order.

[suntan]

I didn't know we had a PST to be brought back.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by suntan
I didn't know we had a PST to be brought back.

I meant as in a 7% total hit like the old GST rate.

[suntan]

The last thing the NDP want to do is bring in a regressive tax.

[killramos]

So any coles notes on what they are actually spending the money on?

Roads paved with pork? Something cool? Sports Stadium? Bullet Train? Converting Alberta to fusion power? Anything really?

It's one thing to spend stupid amounts of money, but it never seems like we ever get anything additional from tax and spend governments vs the more fiscally restrained. Status quo either way, nothing ever changes.

Shocking how people tend to support fiscal conservatism when we never seem to get anything from the tax and spend side of the bench when they are in power.

But we have an income problem, right.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by killramos
It's one thing to spend stupid amounts of money, but it never seems like we ever get anything additional from tax and spend governments vs the more fiscally restrained. Status quo either way, nothing ever changes.

More spending = More 1% to spend on "art" to complain about.

[J-hop]

Originally posted by Gestalt
It was 1986. Just over 4 billion not corrected for constant dollars. Ralph got lucky later that oil boomed under his watch by over 55%, while he slashed and burned, while the NDP took over as oil revenue tanked by 75%. They are commies, but Ralph sold this province up the river, and as oil revenue rose, he cut royalty rates making sure balancing the books would be harder for future premiers.

I was actually reading about that last night.

Population then was almost half what it is now too.

Not giving the NDP any benefit as I really dislike a lot of things they've done but it is quite interesting how level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with Alberta governments correlates fairly well with oil prices. People often forget to remove that influence in their analysis of governments.

when you really look into ralph and his government he was more or less a buffoon IMO and his image was propped up heavily by oil prices and the prosperity that brought to Alberta.

[rx7_turbo2]

Danielle Smith did a pretty good job making Joe Cici look like a bafoon this morning

She set him up and he didn't even see it coming. She asked what factors the NDP are using to determine the timeline for when they'll stop running deficits and start seeing a surplus. He mentioned predictions regarding the economy. She then hammered him about what the debt to GDP ratio is right now and where he predicts it'll be by 2019. He said its hard to estimate where it will be because it's impossible to predict what the economy is going to do. Um, ok, what? So she said, well how can you predict where the economy will be for your debt deficit predictions but can't predict the economy for debt to GDP predictions? His response? Um, well, we're trying to build a future for al Albertans.

This s government is truly incompetent. Now just to be clear the previous one was as well, but this one seems to be more obviously incompetent? Joe Cici in particular.