Look, there’s no convincing me that our government isn’t totally pissing away our tax dollars on useless program spending. And I’m sure that there’s no convincing you that our government should be more responsible with our money. That’s where I just chalk it up to partisan differences in our political views. I just get rather perturbed when my friends at AECL really don’t care whether they sell any reactors or not, they continue to earn their 6-figure salary and government pension regardless of how many hundreds of millions they lose.

It is interesting because the rhetoric is on the consumer level but the actions are on the small business level.

They are all 13%, and apply every time the title transfers inside NB under their respective guidelines.

Same goes for children. My fiance and I are choosing to have 2-3 kids and not 5 or 6 and she will only take a year off for each of them. She’s making a sacrifice to go back to work just like a parent who decides to stay home for longer makes a sacrifice except the government penalizes us.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in social services like health care, I believe in CPP and EI (though not in its current form), and I would love to see a national child care program. I make my contribution via a tiered taxed system but it just seems the system wants more out of me.

I wasn’t planning on buying a brand new $500k house but a $400K was a definite possibility. Now I won’t by a brand new house at all. Looking at all the ways the government taxes you is new to me. We work hard to earn our income and I’m beginning to wonder what the point is.

In fact, the opposite might be true. Harmonization is a regressive tax — it hurts lower income Ontarians more, which is why there is a provision for enhanced sales credits. But the cuts in corporate taxes will disproportionately benefit individuals who own a lot of stocks — presumably these people have much higher incomes than normal. In my mind, I don’t think of this as even more taxing on higher income individuals and families. In fact, that is one of the problems I had with the “health premium” — it was a proportionately higher tax on average income households.

@Alexandra & @Traciatim: I’m not sure the HST will now be applicable on used vehicles. I would think not but I’m not sure. On the same topic, I notice that there is a PST but not GST on home insurance premiums. Would a HST now be applied on it?

@Ian: It is true that *new homes* costing more than $400K will cost more. Apparently, the PST savings for builders will amount to 2 to 3 percent of the price of a new home — savings they will presumably pass on to consumers. As someone pointed out before, we have a choice with many consumption taxes — we can modify our consumption by buying a resale home in that price range.

Possibly because it benefits the Saskatoon resident in an indirect manner. The road from the manufacturing heartland to Saskatoon allows the fridge she needs during the summer to be shipped. The water and sewer system allows the worker to live in a location which is a reasonable distance from the work site.

It seems to me that a country based on Liberterian principles would take us back to pre Industrial Revolution economies, where most lived in squalor on farms extract just enough to survive on.

DAvid

On CIDA — that money is targeted to specific locations where the money will do the most good, and in one instance with which I am very familiar requires that the donor (s) from Canada ,and the receiving country raise about 6/7th of the total donated. There is a requirement that the funds be carefully accounted, and a restriction on further funds to any country, or donor partner if full and accurate accounting does not occur. Thus there is good return on the investment, money is mulriplied and it is targeted where it will do the most good, the local government also supports the initiative, and the participants have a good reason to ensure the funds are fully accounted.

I very much doubt this takes “thousands” of civil servants to manage, more like a handful.

As Geron so eloquently put it — “A significant cut in government revenue would mean a large reduction in the quality of essential services.”

Since most of our government budgets are spent on Health Care, Education, and social services, (in BC about 75%) what would YOU cut to see a significant reduction in taxes: roads, drinking water, policing & military, or something else?

Now if we look the the increase in child care facilities that has occurred in Canada due to the Tory Child Tax Credit, we can readily see how well folks come together to create infrastructure and services when left to themselves.

DAvid