To the Cons, Middle Class seems to mean anyone making $150K to $250K. At least that seems to be who they are aiming their benefits for the Middle Class towards. That's not me.
In Canada, you are in the top 1% is you make 200k or more a year. Of course, it means different things depending where you live, but it is a lot of money none the less. With the girlfriend we aren't far from it. We aren't in need and we could afford to pay more income taxes.
I can't disagree with the idea of greater capital gains taxes. There's a lot of money that people have just sitting around, earning more money, the proceeds of which don't seem to be adequately taxed. The tax breaks that the Cons have given to big business, when we already seem to have some of the lowest corporate taxes going, aren't exactly helping things either. The principals of large corporations are pocketing the difference rather than putting it back into the economy. Trickle-Down Economics is a thoroughly debunked concept.
Yup, yet there are still lots of people praising its merites. Ideology, I say!
A lot of the money that they've been "swimming in" was borrowed against the future. It's time that we started paying down the debt, so that we aren't mortgaging our children's futures. You don't plan a vacation if you can't afford the rent and groceries.
At the federal level the debt has been going down pretty steadily since the mid 90s to 2008. Than we got the financial crisis and the impact of the Torie's lowering of taxes. With a GDP around 1.8 trillion dollars and a debt of 628 billion dollars*, the debt represent about 30% of the GDP. We are far from Greece's 120%, the US federal debt at 70% or Japan at 180%. There is no urgency.
Thing is, repaying debt isn't a good priority. Growth can be a solution to debt. If the debt stays the same and the GDP keeps growing, it means the size of the debt in relations to the economy is shrinking. The money given to foreign banks to repay the debt most likely will not be reinvested in the economy. It is just something the rich want cause it benefits them since they have equity in banks. If the money that was supposed to go to a bank is invested in the economy instead, it will bring growth to the economy. Not to mention that one dollar given as salary is worth more than one dollar. That dollar is first given to the laborer, but then given to the waitress that served him at the restaurent. She then uses that dollar to pay for her tampons and so on. So that dollar might be worth 1.5 dollars. Credit Swiss will probably just invest that dollar in China and that will be that.
So repaying the debt shouldn't be a priority. Not right now when the economy is in the crapper at least.
*About the same as it was in the 90s. So the debt is the same after going down, but the GDP almost doubled. Not too shabby.
I disagree. When properly applied such taxes impact those with disposable income, far more than those who are just getting by.
Not exactly. If you look at the raw number, you might think they spend more, but it represents a smaller percentage of their gross income. That is if you make 50k a year, you'll spend a higher percentage of that income on taxed goods and services than a person that makes 500k a year even if that person did buy a more expensive car. The rest of that money is put away. The richer a person is, the more it saves and invests. They can buy more expensive house and even if the value only grows 5% like cheaper houses, 5% of one million dollars is more than 5% of 300k. Capital gain on a house you own and live in ain't taxable. They put more money in RRSPs, and those reduce their income taxes. They have more equity and we both agree capital gain taxes are very low. The system is gamed for the rich. Sales taxes are just a tranfer of the income taxes the rich should pay to the middles class and the poor.
Right now wealthy people are paying income tax at a significantly lower rate than even the great robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century did. The disparity between wealthy and regular folk is an ever widening gulf.
I agree and it is with income and capital gain taxes that we reduce the gap. Not sales taxes.
The point is that everyone has a study and statistics can be spun pretty much any way that you want to.
Well, it is a serious study, not making stats say what I want. Can it be debunked? Maybe, but we do not have the resources for that.
Yes, child care, etc., etc.... I would really like for people to start looking at their own finances and stop picking my pocket, to decide how they're going to create their family.
The plan should finance itself with the surplus Ottawa was going to make before oil prices went down. Launching the program is the kind of spending that helps relaunch the economy.
Don't create a family that you can't afford.
Reality is much different. We have to live with people who make kids when they shouldn't. So it is an issue we have to deal with, and buying guns doesn't work. We see that in the US.
That's a matter of opinion. Think "transfer payments."
It is one tool, among others, inscribed in the Constitution. Ontario gets those too I believe.
I didn't say that it was. I have mentioned rationalization of spending, for example. It's just that the default government position seems to be going back to the trough, rather than checking to see if the current funds are being spent appropriately. I've been poor. Dirt poor. As in only had one pair of pants and couldn't leave the house on laundry day poor. I'm doing OK now. That gave me the perception that you don't spend money that you don't have, on things that you can't afford, until you can cover your current costs. Again; rationalize spending.
Thing is, a government isn't an individual or household. For one thing it can print money, something we can't. It can also raise its income rather easily, something we have more trouble doing. It also have differently responsabilities and a different mission than us. I find comparing a government to us a rather faulty analogy.