Alberta Politics II
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/\Yup. Hopefully Prentice will take some lessons from this latest downturn in budgets moving forward...
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The Klein era was not good in the long term. The infrastructure was left to deteriorate while trying to reduce the debt. We are now paying the price for that with the money being spent to replace and upgrade facilities. Another issue was the ending of Health Care premiums. Instead of bringing in a PST lets reinstate the HCP. At least get some stable funding for the health care system.
Diversifying the revenue stream is required. And as was mentioned above diversifying the revenue is more important that diversifying the economy. The energy sector is only 25% of the GDP. |
Maybe they can't diversify the economy as much as they would like.
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I'm not sure that Alberta needs a sales tax to cover government revenue, in my mind the biggest mistake of the Klein era was bringing in the flat tax. Right now a person making $50K a year pays twice as much taxes in Alberta as they would in Ontario, and a person making $200K a year pays 25% less than they would in Ontario.
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**rant over** nothing infuriates me more than having to make arguments that make me appear as if I'm pro left wing. |
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http://pppcouncil.ca/resources/issue...nvestment.html |
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-keeping spending under control (or at least, recognizing the correlation between revenue and spending; whether you keep spending down or increase taxes to keep pace with spending - one or the other needs to happen; -consistently balanced budgets, even during times of low commodity prices; -aggressively courting corporate relocation from other provinces. This was about as close as the government ever got to successful diversification. Agree that he should have kept the health premiums, but I believe it was actually Stelmach who eliminated them. Not to say he didn't make mistakes (every leader does), but these were solid achievements; I can't think of any notable achievements from Klein's successors... |
I moved the conversation into the ABC forum. Have at 'er.
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Fun fact about progressive income taxes...
While a flat tax certainly has its merits, one disadvantage is that it doesn't have the same stabilizing effect a progressive tax has during economic slumps, or at least not to the same extent. During an economic slowdown, incomes obviously tend to fall, and when incomes fall under a progressive system, people get pushed into lower brackets, reducing not just their absolute tax payments, but also the tax they pay as a percentage of their income. This means a lower reduction in saving/consumption than if people didn't fall into lower brackets, which can decrease the severity of a recession. When the brackets are designed well, a progressive tax reduces the tax burden during economic troubles (and also has the effect of increasing it during economic booms when people are more capable of paying). While a flat tax with a personal deduction is also progressive, a similar drop in income doesn't produce as large of a drop in the overall income tax rate being paid. This doesn't necessarily mean Alberta should reinstate a progressive income tax system, but it's certainly food for thought. A PST would probably be more effective in stabilizing revenue anyway. Also... Progressive taxes don't necessarily penalize success because the rich often benefit more from certainly public services than the middle class or poor, so it is logical that they pay more. For instance, the rich benefit much more from an efficient police system because they have far more in assets to lose in case of theft/etc. The same applies to fire protection, etc. Plus there's the fact that chances are the extra marginal income the rich get back from a flat tax system is probably going towards things like a second home or a second Bentley. There are far more efficient and/or desirable uses for capital. I'm not talking about redistributing wealth here, I'm talking about the tax burden. Taking money from groups to give to other groups just makes people upset. It's more agreeable for both groups when the money they pay is instead used for projects and services that everyone can use. |
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