Tax credits for soccer are crazy. The last thing we need is more kids getting repeat concussions from bouncing soccer balls off their heads. These multi-concussed kids could grow up to be irrational, confused politicians. Then we'll really be in trouble!

Competitive sports are a lousy way to encourage exercise. Obese kids who are most in need of exercise are made to feel unwelcome on sports teams. It would have been better to give this money to municipalities to build more safe sidewalks, bikepaths and overpasses so everyone can get proper, regular exercise walking to school, to the corner store, to visit friends etc. instead of taking a bus or driving everywhere.

In my neighborhood, there are no sidewalks and my neighbor drives his obese kids a couple of blocks to school in his pickup truck every day instead of letting them walk. Meanwhile, the municipality piddled-away $10 million on a huge rec centre that's usually half-empty. $10 million would have built a lot of sidewalks and bike paths. So now we're stuck with paying an extra $500 per year in property taxes year after year for an empty rec centre.

When I was a kid, I delivered a Province newspaper route in the morning before school and two Sun routes after school. One of the Sun routes was on the side of a steep hill. I had to walk up and down the equivalent of several flights of stairs with a heavy sack of newspapers on my back to reach each doorstep. Great exercise! And then I rode my single-speed bike a long distance uphill to get back home again. More heavy exercise - a lot more aerobic than most sports.

After getting all this heavy exercise every day, I had no interest in PhysEd and organized sports. Another reason why I disliked PhysEd was because our PhysEd teacher tried to force us into wrestling. If our wrestling partners were willing females, that could have been interesting. But I had no interest in rolling around on the floor with some sweaty guy.

I skipped PhysEd class as much as possible and spent the time hanging around the library. Even though I was a fairly big kid, the school bully must have figured I was some sort of wimp because I was not interested in organized sports. He tried to push me around. I'll never forget the shocked expression on the S.O.B.'s face as he looked up from the floor after I decked him.

The budget was a huge political statement. To me that statement was, ordinary Canadians can take control of their own lives.
It;s up to Canadians to decide their outcomes.
The CPC is giving you the tools to achieve this.
No more nanny state social engineering.
Nana nana , hey hey, goodbye.
To you socialist whiners, I say get real.

Blah, blah ,blah . More bullshit from I am Clueless .
This budget sucks and adds(increases) personal taxes by 1%.
This is Voo Doo economics at its worst .
A smoke and mirrors budget foisted onto the delusional voters(one in three) that actually voted for these morons .
All they did was take little known aand little understood portions of the tax guide and shine a light on 'em .
ALmost all of there so-called cuts previously existed in one form or another .
It helps no one .

Get used to it Mr. Lee. The Conservatives are headed for a mojority.

majority...oops

The conservatives in effect have a majority. As long as they keep the Bloc in a position where they view the conservatives as the party more likely to give power to Quebec, they will support they conservatives.

I, like most people, would like to pay less tax however I have lived and worked internationally (including places where there is no tax) and I know that I am getting a very good tax deal here. Marc is right, this budget is a very clear statement from a government which does not believe that government should act to ensure goods and services not provided by the market are provided. If these types were in power in the 19th century, the CPR would never have been built as the government involvement (required as an incentive for private investment) would never have happened.

I was wondering how long it would take for this left-wing website to trash the budget - simply because it was put forward by the Conservatives.

Canadians, like me, are overtaxed. We pay the freight. Low income earners pay little or no tax. Most Canadians are not part of unions, do not work for government, are not on welfare, are not in prisons, etc. Many Canadians are are net contributors to the system.

The only people who would disagree with this latest budget are those generally on the receiving end (farmers, artists, natives etc) or those with a vested interest in preserving their monopoly of labour supply - government union workers.

Marc Lee has zero clue about what he is talking about:

The 50% is a fact, not a myth you idiot.....

Everytime you fill your gas tank - 35% tax. Everytime you purchase a good - 14% tax. Evertime you buy a 6 pack - 50% tax. Property taxes, airport taxes, parking taxes, capital gains taxes, MSP, etc.

You fill your tank, pay for parking, lunch and dinner, then buy a 6 pack on your way home - and you've just paid around 30 - 40 in taxes.

We are taxed to death...

It is not the taxes that bother me as much as the spending. Governments are inefficient and do not spend wisely. They spend to get votes. They are weighed down by special interest groups including labour groups that in many circumstances, control them.

The more discretionary money back in my pocket, the better.

IAMC - great quote and you are correct. The days of social engineering are over!

This is an extremely popular budget, as it provides a little relief for everyone. Your average tradesman, corporations, consumers, commuters, parents, workers - the middle class.

Hannibal, it was a .5% increase, or $500/year on $100K salary. Also, contrast this versus the $500 employment tax credit. Then consider all of the other goodies - you are wrong, and you are only bashing this because this brilliance comes from the Tories....

There is a shift from centralized government control and interference, to self-reliance and choice.

I would have like to see a plan for the environment and aboriginals...

There are a few holes, but this budget (especially for a first budget) provides relief in many areas.

I like the direction of the Tories.

Capitalism/maybelle:
Yesterday you posted:

one assumes you've left out the word 'tax' in the first sentence, so, how does that sentiment square with your complaints just this morning about a range of taxes applied to consumption:

What do you really think?

Have you swapped brains with I AM Clueless for the day?

Mr. Lee, can you imagine what life in Canada would be like with majority Liberal or NDP Governments?

Why, we might have perpetual poverty on native reserves. We might have people dying in emergency waiting rooms because of a lack of private investment. We might have a million people who can't even get the services of a family doctor because of government planning.
We might have criminals walking the streets because of "compassionate" sentencing. We might not even be able to deport a known terrorist due to poor immigration laws. Why, the government might allocate billions of dollars to useless programs targeting law-abiding citizens who enjoy skeet shooting instead of hiring police officers. We might antagonize our best trading partner resulting in unemployment or economic hardship.

Mr. Lee, can you possibly imagine that? And while you're at it, imagine getting a real job too.

G West - I never posted that.

Go back and check - otherwise, somebody has access to my password....

Personally - I would never advocate a pure sales tax....why? People would save too much.

I am a saver, but thankfully, the majority of people are not. We are increasingly becoming a consumer based economy (though far from the US).

Huge sales taxes would squeeze the retail sector, which is vital. I know a lot of fiscal conservatives advocate this - there is a group in the US called fair tax, which proposes this.....

We need a combination of sales and income taxes....however, we should prune both..

There are certainly instances where the term "tax relief" is appropriate. I'm impressed that the new budget ENDS INCOME TAXATION OF STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS. Given that students are usually struggling and living hand-to-mouth, the notion that the state should be clawing back much needed scholarship relief was outrageous. That's not a tax cut, that's tax relief. Thank you Stephen Harper.

Capitalism:
You're right, I'm wrong. It was IAMC. You and he have somehow morphed into the same entity in my mind. Apologies.

I'm all for fair taxes on all income but I'm against the holiday that corporations, much of the big retail sector and especially the big multinationals and the extractive industries and the banks get. I've never had anything against small business. If all income were taxed we could lower rates significantly tomorrow and the obsessive power of the big banks and the corporate elites would be brought to heel. What small businessmen like you fail to recognize is where your own best interests actually lie, imo.

There's a quote from Albert Camus I've always liked: "The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm." The US is a perfect illustration of that fact.

Right now, I'm much more concerned that we get Canada delinked from the US dollar and allied with a stable currency like the euro. I'm beginning to think the US is headed for real monetary and deficit trouble.

As I said yesterday, in the US the insane policy of using tax rollbacks to try and stimulate the economy has created the most economically unequal country in the advanced world: A country with the largest public debt and the most private indebtedness; the longest working hours and poorest worker benefits in modern history; an enormous and growing trade deficit and an exploding problem with undocumented workers, among other things such as abysmal health care for a large minority of its people All the while delivering record profits to major corporations. Harper is trying to bind us tighter to an economy and a system that is in serious difficulty, it’s a mistake and I hope we don’t suffer too much for it.

Percy
The first $3000 of bursaries and scholarships was already tax free. Don't give him too much credit.

OK so, for Marc Lee, income taxes amounted to 14%.

How much do you have to drive? = 35%
How much do you smoke and/or drink? = 50%
How much do you have to pay to MSP? = 0-23%
Do you buy anything other than groceries? = 14%
Do you pay anyone to do anything for you? = 7%

I could go on with the list, but the sentiment is there.

All of these things must be PAID IN FULL with before tax dollars. This means you must earn the money, then pay income tax on it, then pay these other items and the taxes on them with what you are left over.

In simple terms take your 14% and at least double it, unless you happen to do a lot of driving, then triple it. If you need medications that are costly (like like certain pain relief meds) or have to have to continue living (like insulin) then you should put that rate as closer to 60%.

The point is that any taxes slashed from the big-overgrown-mothering-us-till-we-die federal government is a good thing.

Considering that the CONformers are stuck in a box by the BloQ and LIEberals they have no choice but to actually try and keep some of their campaign promises. Sadly more money will be wasted with a 1% GST now and 1% later (all that $$$ spent on computing changes twice - rather than once).

Better would be a BloQ government, that way the treasury would be exhausted in a month, then Canada would be able to declare insolvency and pass the buck to the provinces. Or have the Provinces slam the door shut on the Federal 'institutions'.

We need a 'slash and burn' approach to cleaning up Ottawa, make it leaner (and if you like meaner). Slash the stupid, useless programs - like the 'gun registry' and a CBC that cannot even satisfy its only remaining customers, among others.

Turn that cash savings into a one-time paydown on the national debt. Turn the debt-interest savings into an annual cut in the federal INCOME tax rate.

I know that this is part of the mantra of the LIEberals, but they could not be trusted with the keys to the vault anymore.

Anyone who has studied the history of social programs designed to help the average Canadian can tell you that it has been a series of building relief by one side (in times of need) and destruction (When times were deemed prosperous).The repetative periods of growth and decline in a capitalist economy demand a system to support those in need during times of economic fallow. The conservatives have resorted to the same old destruction of these much needed systems, while using the arguement that times are good and government is too large. The time will come again when the economy turns sour and we the people will be forced to once again spend untold dollars rebuilding the social safety net to keep Canadians alive. This repetative building up and tearing down has wasted incredible amounts of much needed tax money to help those who are in need as well as provide profits for the greed mongers. It makes no sense yet the public eats it up like lollipops. Once the system is in place leave it there for the next time the economy shifts into it's winter monthes. harper is justr the latest shill of the corporate corrupt who place money as their god. When will we wake up and smell the bull$hit?

Percy wrote:

I'm impressed that the new budget ENDS INCOME TAXATION OF STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS.

Yes, that was a really smart move. Before a recent municipal election, a school board candidate showed up on the doorstep and started blathering on about how he wanted to sink massive amounts of tax money into mentally-deficient students. He looked flabbergasted when I asked him if he had any plans to provide more support for gifted students.

Some balance is needed here. It's the gifted students who are going to find ways to understand and prevent autism, fetal alcohol syndrome and other maladies. Even if we spent a trillion dollars a year on counsellors for each fetal alcohol child, that won't unscramble the egg. We need to focus more on prevention since 50 percent of those in prison for violent crimes have fetal alcohol syndrome.

If the NDP and federal Liberals were farmers, they'd plant all their seeds in the least fertile soil, none in the most fertile soil.

cc
The first $3000 of scholarships and bursaries was tax free in 2005. How many students actually get scholarship funds in excess of that amount annually? The problem with a lot of critics is that they don't know what they're talking about much of the time.

One thing that would help today's post-secondary students would be full deductibililty against income for all books and materials.

Remeber, G West, that the "insane" fiscal policy in the US has also created the strongest economy, the lowest unemployment, the greatest wealth per capita, the highest standard of living, the greatest post-secondary institutions, the greatest medical and scientific research, the most philanthropic society etc etc...in the world.

Millions of people around the world, including young Iranians, look to the US for a better life - do you blame them?

Their "insane" fiscal policies evidently are working.

By the way, the Candian dollar is not linked to the $US - it trades freely.

G West

I'm beginning to think the US is headed for real monetary and deficit trouble.

In that case, you should be happy that Harper settled for 80 cents on the dollar for the softwood duty refund instead of waiting for a 100 percent refund in U.S. dollars that could wind up being worth less than 50 cents Canadian a few years from now. The U.S. dollar was worth less than 90 cents Canadian at one point in 1974 when the U.S. was dealing with skyrocketing oil import costs at the same time they were still paying bills related to the Vietnam war. Today's situation is history repeating itself.

The fuel economy of American vehicles increased dramatically between the 1970s and 1980s due to computerized engine controls, lighter construction materials and other factors. If the Americans want to stop their economy from collapsing due to oil import costs, they'd better make some fast, concrete changes to improve fuel economy again.

The smart move would be to push plug-in hybrids, home-grown alcohol fuel made from cellulose farm waste using a technology developed by Ottawa's Iogen Corporation, and issuence of part-time cab licenses to all drivers with perfect safety records and no criminal records. Ordinary drivers could then pick-up paying passengers on the way to work to help fund their upgrade to plug-in hybrid vehicles. Public transit in the U.S. is far too dangerous for anyone to rely on for regular transportation. It's getting to be that way here too.

Gee whiz! These Tory idiots are delusional in the extreme .
Some facts:
'Neo-Conservative budget' raises taxes on poor: Liberals
Last Updated Wed, 03 May 2006 18:32:47 EDT
CBC News

Opposition members blasted the Tory budget during Question Period on Wednesday, charging that it raises income taxes on the poorest Canadians.

Calling it a "neo-Conservative budget," Opposition leader Bill Graham said the budget will benefit those who earn the most.
Liberal Leader Bill Graham (File photo)

* INDEPTH: Federal Budget 2006

"Why didn't the prime minister tell the country in his campaign that one of his five priorities would be raising income tax for the poorest of Canadians?" Graham asked.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejected the criticisms. He called the budget "the best news budget that this country has ever seen," adding that taxes will go down for every income class.

The budget will cut the GST by one percentage point in July and offer almost $20 billion in tax relief for individuals over the next two years.

As part of the package, the tax rate on the lowest tax bracket will rise to 15.5 per cent on July 1, after the Liberals cut it to 15 from 16 per cent in their fiscal update in November. But the Tories say that the overall tax package will provide more tax relief.

* RELATED STORY: Tax-cut budget delivers on PM's promises

"In one year, this minister of finance has managed to do what [the Liberal] party never did: produce a budget that matches the election platform we ran on," Harper said.

Liberal MP John McCallum, an economist, said Harper's comments are "dead wrong" and accused the prime minister of raising income taxes.

But Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the Liberals were proposing less than $9 billion in tax cuts in November, compared to the $20 billion announced in Tuesday's budget.

"20 is more than nine, even to an economist," Flaherty said.

The Liberals also slammed the budget for ignoring aboriginal issues and scrapping the Kelowna agreement, a $5.1 billion five-year plan signed by then prime minister Paul Martin that would pour money into housing, education, clean water, health services and economic development.

"It took 18 months for our government to pull together the provinces and our native communities for a historic agreement. It took them 18 words in this budget to rip it up," Graham charged.

But Harper said the budget will put more money into aboriginal housing, on and off reserve, and provide funding for water treatment.

Headlines: Canada

Oh,yea we might be having another election real soon as the Senate majority is Liberal and they don't like to be pushed around by anybody.Especially afailed economist Moron by the name of Harpo .
Get a life neo-cons the only majority you will ever have is that the majority of idiots are under the neo-con banner . Period .

A country with the largest public debt and the most private indebtedness; the longest working hours and poorest worker benefits in modern history; an enormous and growing trade deficit and an exploding problem with undocumented workers, among other things such as abysmal health care for a large minority of its people All the while delivering record profits to major corporations.

Since our major trading relationship is with the US, if they go down, we'll go down.

Neo conmen should look to the price of gold.

G West - the answer to your question is that a lot of students get ripped off on the old 3000 dollar cap on scholarships. When I was at U of T my first year, I had 7,500 dollars worth of scholarships....and I had to pay tax on 4,500. When you factor in the money I made that year (about 6000) and the RESP money my parents gave me (which I might add also counts as MY income), I ended up paying taxes. Which is silly, as any money I might have 'earned' was quickly consumed during the next three years of University education, when I didn't have entrance scholarships.

The same goes for students in Grad School, especially those with OGS or SSHRC. Imagine getting 17,000 in scholarship, having to pay tax on 14,000 worth of that and then having to pay the school for tuition, books, etc. etc. etc. That's hardly the way we should be encouraging our nation's brightest future minds. You might also argue that the entire premise is contradictory, since the govt. is essentially taxing itself by taking money away from its own grants.

Also, with regards to the article itself...the claim seems to be made that most Canadians won't see more than .25 cents on the dollar for the UCB....yet the author also claims that taxes are nowhere near 50 % (the '50 per cent myth'). I'll admit there is some spin doctoring by the Conservatives, but if you're going to throw cotradictory stats like that about, you're just as guilty. I can tell you right now that the average person who only pays 14 cents on the dollar in Income Tax will get FAR more than 500 dollars for the childcare benefit. The only people likely to be taxed that heavily on childcare benefits are the upper middle class and the rich....the people who are legitimately paying what you call the '50 percent myth' in taxes.

hannibal

you're saying 'facts' are a pile of quotes attributed to the liberals?

haha ok buddy.

Garbage harper and his neocon cronies have their new crime bill to crow about including juvenile, simplistic catch-phrase slogans.
Let's see how "tough" they are on the real criminals, the greedy planet raping corporations that are their sinister puppet masters.
As for the budget they call it trickle down economics for a reason.

CC
You haven't been reading my posts. I made the point about ethanol days ago on the Prius/plug in thread.

As to the softwood trade settlement, even if the 80% deal were a good idea relative to a declining US dollar in international money markets, it would still be a gimme to the US because it essentially sidelines the NAFTA anyway and capitulates to the US industry; as you no doubt know. Harper has no doubt entered facilitating agreements under the table with the softwood producing provinces and the big industry players to get their cooperation. The real cost won't be measurable until the fiscal imbalance negotiations start this fall - that's when one can start to do the sums on softwood, imo,
The whole free trade thing, well that's quite another debate.

G West wrote:

The first $3000 of scholarships and bursaries was tax free in 2005. How many students actually get scholarship funds in excess of that amount annually?

A few of the smartest kids do. It's the smartest 1% of the population that moves civilization forward. Providing them with proper support can make a huge difference.

full deductibililty against income for all books and materials.

Science and technology are advancing so rapidly that books are obsolete before they're printed. It would make more sense to expand public access to the best quality online textbooks and journals.

Small, remote towns should be supplied with top-quality realtime videoconferencing links so students there can directly participate and interact with big city university classrooms. This would help lift native people out of poverty. The same videoconferencing links could be used to also provide remote medical diagnostic services.

flyingjesse
I'm sorry dude, but that just doesn't fly. It you were taxable for your 6,000 earned income plus 4500 in net scholarship funds you would have had to have a hefty amount of RESP funds in income too for you to be taxable after deducting tuition and education amounts. Students deserve help, not a golden handshake. Most young people in your situation would have had to take out a student loan. Consider yourself lucky your parents could afford to set up an RESP for you. Almost no parents can these days. I agree books should be fully deductible - with receipts.

CC
I have no problem with making scholarship funds fully tax free. I do have a problem with anyone who says the situation has gone from taxing all scholarship income to taxing none - it just doesn't reflect the facts. Given the way tuition fees are escalating all across the country I hardly think scholarships and bursaries are going to solve all the education opportunity problems soon. On the other hand, if a student makes more than, let's say $21,000 net income, in a year, (scholarship or otherwise) why shouldn't he/she pay some tax too?

Your point about textbooks may be valid, in respect of some disciplines at least. On the other hand, textbooks sales have always been a bit of a boondoggle for profs anyway. I think, despite your many good points, CC, that you are just a touch too enamored with technology, but that's just me.

Yea, whatever you say Jesse.
Don't forget that it is because of the Liberal's masterful handling of the economy that the neo-cons have a huge reserve to squander .
My ol' lady is a tax accountant and she says if you paid taxes on that paltry amount you are due a refund .
But she doesn't believe your figures .

hannibal wrote:

raises income taxes on the poorest Canadians.

The poorest Canadians don't pay any income taxes because their incomes are lower than the basic personal deduction. They do pay GST on necessities though. Did you know the Liberals charged GST on wheelchair tires?

The Conservatives shouldn't have raised income taxes on the second poorest Canadians. I would have preferred to see them raise the personal deduction to $15,000, lower the bottom tax bracket to 10 percent instead of raising it from 15 percent to 15.5 percent, and put the squeeze on the ultra-rich with progressive real estate taxes and higher resource royalties etc. to make up the difference.

The Conservatives claim they want to reduce crime. But The Devil finds work for idle hands. (In my case, I believe "The Devil" is shorthand for "A destructive attitude" rather than a mythical semi-humanioid figure.) The best way to reduce crime is to make it worthwhile for people to find jobs, including part-time self-employed jobs, by reducing taxes at the low end and increasing productivity in order to justify a much higher minimum wage.

When a Donald Trump wannabe borrows $5 million narcodollars from a bank or obtains $5 million narcodollars from the stock exchange, buys real estate with $4 million, uses $1 million to bribe politicians with campaign contributions to allow rezoning, sells the rezoned property for $15 million and pockets a $10 million profit, they didn't "earn" $10 million in any sense of the word. As far as I'm concerned, that $10 million should be hit with a 100 percent tax, which would allow the government to eliminate income taxes on the poor.

It's bizarre to give real estate moguls capital gains breaks. Capital gains turnover laws can help useful companies like Iogen with early-stage financing. It's ridiculous to lump Iogen-type companies in the same category as crooked real estate flipping gangsters.

I wouldn't have liked this budget even if J.S. Woodsworth himself had brought it in.

And the Conservatives here know they wouldn't have liked it if it had been a Chretien or Trudeau budget.

No help for natives or child care, not that I expected any.

The tax system has become more complex with a multitude of special-interest rebates for this and that.

There's a small GST rollback (on a Conservative tax) which goes against most Conservative thinking. I can only assume the thinking here is that now Conservatives can be both for and against consumption taxes depending on their mood that day.

The marginal tax rate on the lowest bracket was increased due to some bizarre tax-the-poor-is-good view of the world.

Beats me why no one can figure out that the best and simplest tax break is to raise the basic exemption. Everyone gets the same exemption, rich and poor, so why not raise it instead of administering a rebate for a small break on a soccer program? Because both Conservatives and Liberals don't want to reduce taxes on anyone but upper income groups of course.

One thing about this budget is it gave me the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess that will come next year when the Bloc will be paid back with increased decentralization.

Let us not forget that the abomination of GST was foisted onto this great nation by who ? Conservatives .
I mean you buy five doughnuts you pay GST you buy six you don't. What kinda voodoo economics is that ?
If they were serious about helping they would remove the GST from ALL essential services electricity,heating oil, and cut the Feds share of the gas tax in half .
DO that and I may even toss my ducat at them .

Raising taxes on the lowest income group is politically difficult but it is not unfair. The lowest income earners are enjoying pretty much a free ride. The lowest income earners also utilize a disproportionate share of government services; i.e., medical, welfare, policing, prisons, etc.

Although it is not PC to say this, economically, the lowest income earners are a net drag to the system - they take in services far more than they contribute monetarily.

I think that raising income taxes on the lowest income group is better than charging them a user fee, which they deserve. Sorry if the truth hurts.

Oh,yea thanks Frank for turning me onto J.S. Woodsworth.
I love this site as there are so many educated people to engage in discourse .
Just Googled the name and there is a ton of material on him.
Thanks

As Neocon starts building the gaz chambers to eradicate the'poor'people from his midst .

G West wrote:

you are just a touch too enamored with technology

I own a hi-tech car and have travelled by jet on business trips, but I mostly get around on a low-tech a bike.

I believe low-tech neighborhood sidewalks and bike paths are better for public health than hi-tech treadmills and stepping machines in centralized hi-tech gyms and rec centres and ultra-expensive hi-tech artifical turf playing fields on school grounds.

I much prefer low-tech, community-based solar-geothermal heating systems to centralized, hi-tech nuclear power stations.

I prefer simple, healthy backyard greenhouse grown, pesticide-free food to imported, hi-tech, genetically-modified, chemically-sprayed food.

I believe lower taxes and higher minimum wages for the poor and prevention of fetal alcohol syndrome will make us much safer than sinking billions of dollars into building modern, hi-tech prisons for the criminalized poor.

I have worked in hi-tech R&D for most of my career, but I also do my own low-tech home improvement work, including digging ditches, pouring cement, framing, plumbing, drywall, etc.

I don't have any biases one way or another for or against technology. I examine all options and choose the one that serves humanity, sustainability and honest economics the best.

Education will be more expensive and less accessible than it would have been under the Liberal plan. As for student aid, our plan would have provided up to $6000 per student for tuition during the course of a four year program. The Conservative plan provides only $80 for text books.

Work with that Jesse .

That's not truth neocon, that's just idiocy!

neo conman
I wonder if you're familiar with the situation in the United States. They are not exactly my favourite exemplar in matters of dealing with the working poor but they do have a system called the Earned Income Tax Credit. You might want to check it out. In Canada we have the Dividend income tax credit, depletion and royalty allowances for investment income and a joke of a capital gains tax.

The CPC reduced taxes on its friends and conman supporters, where's the surprise.

First enacted in 1975 the US EITC, was expanded in 1986, 1990, 1993, and 2001 with each major tax bill, regardless of whether the tax bill in general raised taxes (1990), lowered taxes (2001), or eliminated other deductions and credits (1986). Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States, and enjoys broad bipartisan support. It operates to provide a lot of poor families with what amounts to a guaranteed annual income.
To suggest that poorest Canadians deserve a 'user fee' is just too looney for comment.

Cycling Commuter
I know all that, I follow your posts and I'm often sympathetic. On the other hand I'm still a great fan of books and I can't forget what you said some time ago about William Shakespeare - forgive me for the poke!

I've reconsidered what I said about scholarships being completely tax free, I think the upper limit should be raised but I can see no reason why an undergraduate who gets, for example, all of his tuition paid and 3 or 4 thousand to boot shouldn't, if he/she also earns money during the summer have to include some of those sums in income and pay a small amount of tax too. Under the current system a student can make upwards of 20,000 now before he/she is taxable when they have a full load of courses. Most children with wealthy parents who don't need all their student deductions can transfer up to $5000 to a parent or a grandparent each year. In whose hands those deductions - assuming a much higher marginal rate of tax - will result in a hefty refund which most parents would, I'd suggest, be wise to give to their child. There are all kinds of ways for people with money to make the system work for them. It's the people with no extra funds trying to get an education that are in difficulty these days. All the CPC budget did for them is to allow them to borrow more - some help!

Not true, the wealthy squeal like stuck pigs whenever there's any chance of someone else getting something they don't.

As I've said ad nauseum the wealthy just prefer to call all their income supports "basic infrastructure". Everything in this country was set up to serve the upper class.

The amount spent on "infrastructure", "security" circuses and roads to playgrounds exceeds the money spent on all social programs provided by gov't for the workers who actually create the wealth. In fact, being as stats do indeed show the wealthy getting wealthier in spite of the taxes they pay and the hard work they avoid I'd say the wealthy are getting a free ride.

Being as most multi-millionaires in this country (those that didn't inherit it) got their wealth from property speculation perhaps the best tax would be a quintupling of the property taxes on land that isn't one's primary residence.

To suggest that poorest Canadians deserve a 'user fee' is just too looney for comment.

So was the rest of the drivel he spouted .

hannibal -

neocon is right - the poorest in Canada do get a free ride. they don't contribute anything, and utilize all of the social programs.

i for one have barely visited the doctor in five years, have never collected a single thing from the government in my entire life.

yet - i will have contributed more taxes this year than most will earn. it is not fair. there has to be incentive to work hard!

what bothers me the most is the huge spending and lack of results. we pour millions into the DTES and our drug problem only get worse. we pour billions into the health care system and lines only get longer. We have paid trillions into the CPP - yet we are worried about a shortage???

I guarantee you that if an institutional investment firm managed that money, there would be too much money invested. Look at the OTPP - they are swimming in cash, but for Canada, the politicians and special interest groups (unions) have screwed things up...

the money is THERE - but should be taken out of the government's hands.

Everyone should know about the "conscience of parliament". BC Mary was even lucky enough to meet him when she was a kid.

Capitalism and Neocon you guys assume that everone is able bodied and capable of doing a days work .
Our system was set up precisely for these reasons not everyone is able to contribute equally .
I am sorry if you feel you are being ripped off Capitalism but if you feel that way and no longer want to contribute then why not move to an Island somewhere ,where you will pay no tax .
The poor may use the services more often but consider this they eat poorly,dress poorly and cannot afford medications when prescribed by a doctor .
Your lack of compassion is truly stunning and all I can surmise is that is part of the neo-con thinking. You have been brain washed .

You know what Capitalism/maybelle, whenever somebody says something ignorant like that, or the equally noxious, 'Those damn lazy Indians never do a lick of work and the government hands them money and they never pay a dollar in tax' - I turn to them, as I do to you now, and invite then and you to trade places with them for two or three years.
No one has ever taken up my challenge. You and IAMC really are interchangeable.

I am not against social programs. I am just stating facts. The highest income earners pay the lions share of taxes in this country; i.e less than 20% of income earners pay more than 80% of all income taxes.

Low income earners pay very little.

The bulk of government expenditures, other than interest on debt, goes to health, welfare, income assistance, unemployment, policing, prisons, native issues.

Service providers such as social workers, police, prison guards, emergency rooms, courts deal mainly with low income people.

Who's perpetuating the situation with their kinder gentler ideology? You left-wing anti-poverty crusaders are actually very dangerous. You do more harm than good.

It seems that you too Capitalism/Maybel have join the lemmings in the neocon pastime of poor bashing. You’ve demonstrating time and again your lack of capacity for abstract thought by echoing populist economics one sees and hears in any canwest/fraser institute publication.

That’s a crock of shite and you know it. You’ve haven’t been to a doctor in years eh? Good for you. Everyone close in my life has visited a doctor within the last year, none of whom I would describe as poor. We’ve visited doctors/hospitals/clinics for a variety of reasons: from whiplash due to a car accident to cancer treatments.

This is truly one of the dumbest statements that I have ever read from you Maybel. I know that ideologically, you will set on the right, but this poor bashing bandwagon that you’ve jumped on shows your true character. To side with the likes of neocon is an embarrassment – the guy has the wisdom of a tree stump, and you find yourself in agreement with him!

http://members.shaw.ca/outsidethebox/Articles/stats.htm

Hannibal/G West,

If our resources when to those that actually needed and deserved our help, as opposed to the system abusers and other inefficient uses - we would have a great society.

I am all for helping people! I support most native initiatives - with exception for some of the land claim issues - our economy is not achieving its full potential and these must be settled.

I just said, give people a choice in how their money is spent. Free up time and resources to focus on the real issues at hand.

Since when is the cost of arresting, processing and incarcerating the poor a social program for the poor? The justice system is security for the wealthy, a social program.

I guess its a social program for the poor when a rich kid gets his new BMW off the dock at the public port and crashes it on the public road and gets saved by the public health care system.

The rich benefit from public health care as much as anyone.

Stats can be a tough thing to ignore. The wealthy are getting wealthier and the poor are getting poorer. If the poor were having a free ride they'd all be buying beachfront in the Cayman's by now but whadda ya know, its the oh-so-hard-pressed wealthy able to do that.

Not a single corporation in this country would work without huge public investments in infrastructure.

So what's your point neocon? Our seemingly progressive tax system (which is acutally mildly regressive) should be reversed because the marginalized in our society continue to struggle? I'm starting to think that between you, Capitalism/Maybel, and IAMC/Ron Erwin (am I the only one who's noticed the similarities in their language?), you are the weakest link.

Just a reminder that to recognize comments by neocon and IAMc(or whatever) validates them. The best response is to ignore them like a horse ignoring a fly. They remain unable to grasp new ideas or grow a heart so why engage them?

I second that emotion...

neocon wrote:

The lowest income earners are enjoying pretty much a free ride.

That may be true in some cases. But as a middle-class taxpayer, I would rather reduce taxes on the poor and encourage them to work at safe, productive jobs at least part-time for a higher minimum wage instead of seeing them collecting welfare and creating trouble because of too much spare time on their hands. It's better to have revenue-neutral lower middle class people than revenue negative impoverished people. Cops, prosecutors, judges, prison guards and parole officers don't work cheap.

It's not necessary to drag-down and destroy the middle class in an attempt to lift the poor, as the NDP is so fond of doing. Better to help the poor by squeezing more taxes out of those who did nothing useful to earn the money, such as drug dealers, crooked real estate scam artists and so on.

More often than not, ultra-rich weasels get their money by hoodwinking naive poor people to begin with, by overcharging them for shoddy goods and underpaying them for labour. A properly-constructed progressive tax system just puts wealth back where it came from to begin with.

I have no problem with millionaires who earn their money doing productive things. I despise lazy, overpaid union featherbedders. It's easy to believe some people work ten times harder and smarter than average or even 100 times harder and smarter. It's impossible to believe that billionaires work thousands of times harder and smarter than average. Their billions are acquired mostly by receiving big government contracts after bribing crooked politicians with campaign contributions, then using their government-granted monopoly powers to overcharge clients while underpaying productive workers.

It was great to see Chretien trying to ban corporate and union political donations. Too bad that Martin and his friends watered-down Chretien's attempt at a complete ban. I'm glad to see Harper finishing what Chretien started. Now we need to work toward reducing provincial and municipal political bribes.

"Don't forget that it is because of the Liberal's masterful handling of the economy that the neo-cons have a huge reserve to squander."

i get tired of this stupid 'we fixed the economy' crap. it's partisan dribble with only a partial basis in fact.

the liberals had a huge surplus every year because they taxed more than they spent. that's the simplest economic equation imaginable. everybody with a brain can see how phony those unexpected surplusses were, year after year after year after year (a fact that both the Conservatives AND the NDP would attest to). for instance:

govt 1. gets 300 dollars in tax revenue, spends 260. has a surplus of 40.

govt. 2. gets 260 dollars in tax revenue, spends 260. surplus of 0.

Or in other words, the first government overtaxed its citizens by 40 dollars. Simple, easy, clear.

I'm not going to sit and aruge whether or not this or that service should be funded, because ultimately that depends on personal beliefs. But to say that the surpluses were 'masterful' economic planning is pure BS. typical liberal party BS.

To go along with that thought....I also think it's important to note that the late 80s/early 90s were a pretty rough period economically. We had a rough recession, and had to make some sacrifices.

The liberals 'fixed' the economy by slashing transfer payments, imposing disguised tax cuts, and waiting for the world economic picture to pick up again. All the while you had govts in the provinces scrambling to figure out how to fund programs, given the loss in revenues (much of which was due to federal cuts). Take Ontairo. On the one hand, you had Bob Rae trying to keep essential services by imposing 'Rae days' and ballooning the provincial debt....and when that was unpopular, you had the conservatives slashing and burning every program in sight in order to end Rae days, lower taxes, and get the economy back in order. obviously the conservatives overdid it...yet the whole mess that led to their popularity owes a large debt to the so-called 'brilliance' of our federal finance minister paul martin, and its ramifications at the provincial level.

ok so now that I've taken shots at the left, time to take a shot at the right...

"we pour billions into the health care system and lines only get longer. We have paid trillions into the CPP - yet we are worried about a shortage???"

We also have an aging population, in case you haven't figured that out. The fact the baby-boomers are starting to become seniors represents a major problem for the health-care system. you can't make old people get healthier by paying for health-care - it's impossible.

Cycling Commuter
Absolutely. About time for a little real competition where extractive industry actually pays a proper tax for the privilege (not the right) of using public resources. Where logging and mining companies actually pay for the infrastructure they destroy as an unintended consequence of their operations. Where capital gains are taxed exactly the same as any other income and where tax deferrals and government "loans" to industry no longer provide the seed money for new corporate operations. Where one jurisdiction can no longer play footsie with the government in order to convince another to sweeten the pot for their next venture. Do you think Harper’s devolution to the provinces is going to act on any of these fronts? Surely not.

Don't believe Harper's cut the corporate lifeline to the party though, he hasn't, and he won't....individual donations channeled through the party will more than make up any shortfall and such donations are going to be blind under his system. He's just better organized, is all, imo.

same goes for CPP, I might add. If you have more hands taking cookies out of the cookie jar than you do putting cookies back in, eventually you're going to face a crisis.

heavy sigh....

Being to the left of Paul Martin I thought you were taking shots against the right twice

flyingjesse
Keep those wings flapping. You ought to shine a little more light on EI and a little less on CPP. Like your earlier point about students and tax a little bit of knowledge is often a dangerous thing. So far, the only conclusion I can come to about what you've written is that you're a bugger for the obvious.

...equally heavy sigh!

i for one have barely visited the doctor in five years, have never collected a single thing from the government in my entire life.

Once again after reading a post by capitalism, I'm left scratching my head.

Are you implying that the poor make unessasary visits to the doctor? Do you have evidence of this?

The poor will never pay their way in the world, economically. That goes without saying and is beside the point.

My point is that a healthy economy benefits EVERYONE - sort of like a rising tide lifts all boats.

The conservative budget does adhere to the principle that individuals spend their own money more effectively than government.

If you disagree with that premise, then either you work for government and wish to perpetuate your own employment situation or you subscibe ideologically to the-government-is-my-shepherd nanny state thinking.

I would then remind readers here that the elitist nanny-statists are the real "poor-bashers" since their ideology perpetuates social problems, rather than solving them.

The Harper budget is, in the words of Warren Kinsella, a home run "batted over the back fence and the ball is still rolling thru the parking lot".

Cycling Commuter: You might be happy to know that I fleece rich people for a living.

"Remeber, G West, that the "insane" fiscal policy in the US has also created the strongest economy, the lowest unemployment, the greatest wealth per capita, the highest standard of living, the greatest post-secondary institutions, the greatest medical and scientific research, the most philanthropic society etc etc...in the world."

As a friend pointed out to me, can you imagine what would happen to the US if China started to float their currency? Ouch! It is also quite funny that poverty can be such a big election issue in a country that has all that above attributed to it.

Putting aside all the rhetoric, the number one concern of parents with young children, that I know, is childcare. The problem among my friends isn't the cost, but just finding quality care. It isn't like your neighbour, like Mr. Harper suggests, can just set up a daycare in their home. The hoops and requirements are lengthy. Additionally, the costs of setting up a large daycare center are so prohibitive, no one but municipal governments are doing it. I see this $1200 as a payment to all the good christian households where daddy goes to work and mommy stays home to look after the kids. They will benefit more than anyone else from this plan. The two working parents making $10 an hour won't see anywhere the benefit that a family with a stay at home mom will. But, that is the Conservative bias anyways, isn't it?

"The poor will never pay their way in the world, economically. That goes without saying and is beside the point."

The poor pay their way by what they don't do. That they accept the status quo and don't riot is all the rich really need. In a capitalist world, it is easy to stay rich. Just keep that television programming super cheap. Ever notice that no matter how poor someone is, if they have a roof over their heads, they have a TV. Interesting.

Chris H
Yeah, Chris, the bright bulb who posted that probably isn't aware that the current US debt, expressed on a per capita basis, is nudging awfully close to $30,000US. Their savings rate is negative and your point about the Chinese is right on.. I'm just afraid they're planning to use another war as duct tape to stick the whole thing together for a few more months.

I agree completely with your assessment of the Harper payback to his base and have been saying it repeatedly. What puzzles me is the lack of a coherent attack by women of childbearing age on a policy that impacts them and their priorities more than anything. Maybe the media just refuses to cover it. Any ideas?

Frank wrote:

perhaps the best tax would be a quintupling of the property taxes on land that isn't one's primary residence.

This would be fine if a small amount of land owned and used by a neighborhood business is also exempt. Small businesses provide 90 percent of the jobs in Vancouver.

The exempt size of a primary residence should also be limited to a back yard that's big enough to grow food to sustain one's own family during hard times or when store-bought food is so badly contaminated that no one in their right mind would eat it. And perhaps the portion of residential properties used to grow food should pay farm property tax rates - or even less. Urban sprawl is not as much an issue when basic food production is integrated within each neighborhood.

Urban farmers who consume their own produce or sell it within their neighborhood don't stress the road system. Rural farmers' food output is usually trucked to a central marketing board collection point, then trucked thousands of km to a factory where it's converted into a plastic-wrapped cardboard-like substance and finally trucked more thousands of km to supermarkets.

The current approach of squeezing sky-high property taxes out of small businesses makes no more sense than giving a free ride to ultra-rich real estate speculators. When small businesses pay sky-high property taxes, a small sit-down restaurant that sells healthy, locally-grown food is not financially feasible. But a multinational-owned drive-through restaurant that sells artery-clogging transfat burgers can be very profitable. A small, worker-owned bike repair shop is not financially feasible with high business property tax rates. But a huge SUV-selling car dealership can still be very profitable.

neo conman:

are the capitalists who get special tax treatment for their income; shelter their inheritances in trusts and hire lawyers and tax accountants to keep their pile of gold growing no matter what their servants, guys like you, pretend. Average Canadians ought to rise up against the real nanny state and force them to actually practice what they preach. People like you are the biggest suckers because you can't see yourselves for what you actually are.

LMAO at phuqehead Jesse .
Dude you have an amazing grasp of the obvious .
Way to go you neo-con fool .
Now phuque off to Garth Turners site we have a full quota of neo-con idiots already .
What a phuqing goof .

In the case of land used for business, sure. Not a hot dog stand plunked down on top of 100 acres but land actually used for business.

But most multi-millionaires in Canada, something like 70%+ if memory serves got that way not from business but from speculating in real estate.

Taxing that at a much higher rate would hopefully divert that money into areas that are more profitable for the community as a whole and would also help to keep property values at a lower level since there would be less capital in the real estate market.

No it doesn't. Its pretty much the same budget a Liberal gov't would have brought in except for a higher marginal rate on the lowest bracket, the web of handouts to interest groups and the $1200 a year thing instead of child care.

You cannot claim you can see a huge change in Canada's taxation system. You're either spinning or wishful thinking.

Most people going about their business today would say the budget didn't make any difference in their lives.

Capitalism wrote:

i will have contributed more taxes this year than most will earn.

Ah, but how did you get your earnings? Did you provide useful products and services, or did you provide harmful products and services? Did you pay your employees and suppliers what they're worth? Or did you underpay your employees and suppliers then pocket the difference? Did you charge a reasonable price, or did you use manipulation and deceit to overcharge?

Unskilled union featherbedders who get $250 per hour for mowing lawns and sweeping floors often claim their fat paycheques are justified because some of the excess "trickles-down" to the local economy (It's more like dribble-down when you see how much a lot of these guys spend on prostitutes). But if they're vastly overpaid to begin with, trickling some of their paycheques back into the community only partly cancels the obscene excess they've squeezed out of struggling taxpayers.

A large retailer was prosecuted and fined a million dollars several years ago for advertising tires as being on sale at "half price" after they raised the price way above its usual level just prior to putting the tires "on-sale" at a price that was still higher than their regular price. The Federal Competition Bureau issued a smart-ass press-release at the time with a headline saying something about "Inflated Tire Prices."

For all I know, you may have run your operation so efficiently that you made a good profit providing useful goods or services while paying your workers an average or better rate for their skill levels and treating your suppliers and clients well. In that case, you could even be overtaxed. But just because you're a hard-working, productive, honest and reasonable individual, don't assume all business people deserve the same level of respect. Many business people make obscene, unearned profits by lying, gouging, manipulating, bullying and bribing while selling harmful products and services.

I'm no communist. I believe free enterprise should play a substantial role in our economy. But a 100% free enterprise economy would require 100% transparency coupled with 100% free-will, 0% naive clients and workers, and workers and clients in a good bargaining position due to lots of alternatives (including lots of competing vendors and a 0% unemployment rate, where employment includes self-employment).

Unfortunately, free-will is often subverted by various types of addictions (including gambling addictions). Choice is intentionally sabotaged. Transparency is subverted by manipulation and lies directed at clients and workers who are at the low end of the bell curve. Just because an individual is not bright enough to read and understand the fine print, that's no reason to let weasels get away with gouging them. Even some fairly bright individuals are too busy or too tired to read the fine print and weasels use that as an opening to strip them of their life savings.

Capitalism wrote:

i for one have barely visited the doctor in five years

I try to avoid doctors too, being mindful of the fact that medical system bungling kills 20,000 Canadians per year. The death rate in Manitoba plunged when doctors went on strike there! A lot of this has to do with overprescribing dangerous drugs.

All the same, some doctors do provide useful services.

Health care needs are often related to where you live. Poor people who didn't drive cars but lived on cheap land adjacent to freeways wound up with lots of lead in their bloodstream when lead was added to gasoline. Rich people made a point of running freeways through poor neighborhoods while keeping their own neighborhoods clean and pristine.

Recent research has found that one of the major reasons why poor people are obese is because it's just too damned dangerous to walk down the street in poor neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the ultra-rich drug traffickers who make poor neighborhoods so dangerous tend to live in safe neighborhoods and go jogging down serene trails behind their mansions, breathing fresh air from all the nice trees that surround them. The same type of thing goes in other countries - including Afghanistan. See the last few paragraphs at http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146261012443&call_pageid=968332188492

To all the righties on this board. Now that Harper is not supporting the Kelowna accord and Campbell is insisting he does which side will you take? Campbells's or Harper's?

to neocon who thinks we are now living in a new-age tax-free wonderland under Harper.

Well Frank, naturally revenues will increase. The better the economy does, the more revenue the Govt. gets.
It's been proved many times before that lowering taxes results in revenues increasing.
I know that this thinking is blasphemy to most on this site. It kinda makes them look dumb.
I await the nonconstructive insults.

Taxes and spending are both increasing IAMC.

.

I've heard this before and its never been backed up with evidence. I would assume "many times" can be backed up with links?

If the Cons actually believed that they would have lowered the actual tax rates. I assume they didn't want a repeat of the what happened to the BC Liberals.

I think you mean as long as the economy continues to grow as it has in every other year the absolute numbers will increase.

Anyway IAMC, who is wrong, Campbell or Harper?

Chris H wrote:

two working parents making $10 an hour won't see anywhere the benefit that a family with a stay at home mom will.

Instead of separating poor workers from their children, we need to improve Canada's productivity so a much higher minimum wage can be justified. The minimum wage in the UK is equivalent to about C $14 per hour and their economy is doing ok. Even Wal-Mart has asked the U.S. government to raise the U.S. federal minimum wage. Wal-Mart says if they raise their wages and prices unilaterally, they'll lose a lot of business to lower-paying competitors. If Wal-Mart's competitors have to pay a higher minimum wage, then Wal-Mart can afford to pay somewhat more than minimum wage because of their greater productivity.

We need to integrate jobs and housing so less time and money is wasted travelling long distances to work. We need to stop taxing the poor and start squeezing the ultra-rich. Then both parents can spend less time working outside their homes, more time raising their own kids.

We'll all benefit because kids who receive proper parental supervision are less inclined to become criminals.

neocon wrote:

I fleece rich people for a living.

Maybe you're a social worker without realizing it. This reminds me of a popular Russian joke after the fall of communism. Two newly-rich Russian businessmen met in a Parisian cafe. One said "See this tie? I paid $1,500 for this tie." The other said "You fool. You could have bought exactly the same tie across the street for $2,500!"

Harper on this matter, Campbell is only saying what he has to say. Did you ever understand the Kelowna accord ? I didn't, where was this billions of dollars going to be spent ?
We already dedicate 8 billion dollars a year to Indians, what good has it done?
There has to be a better approach.

G West wrote:

I can't forget what you said some time ago about William Shakespeare

I suggested that Shakespeare has more to do with history than with English. His writings appear to be sort of a fetish for some people. I started reading an online version of Shakespeare's work. It was just as boring as the printed version.

Which Shakespearean quote comes closest to saying in a flowery way "Would thoust liketh fries with that?"

"And all the stars who never were are parking cars and pumping gas." Do you remember this tune?

I once worked with a woman whose surname was Shakespeare. She claimed to be a direct descendent of Willy.

Boy,the delusion in I Am Clueless is deep .
What a load of shit !
He actually believes this nonsense which is frightening .
Almost as stupid as Jesse who beleives that $80.00, for a book is better than $6,000 over 4,years .
Sheesh ! These neo-cons are dumb .

http://www.pco.gc.ca/default.asp?Language=E&Page=archivemartin&Sub=newscommuniques&Doc=news_release_20051125_661_e.htm
Here 'ya go clueless .

Is that your excuse for being ignorant? I don't understand? Didn't read it? Or you did and didn't have the intelligence to understand, in which case I'm wrong about your being ignorant on account of being to racist and stupid to get it. (well, I've been wrong before)

For the rest of you righties who think capitalism is great, I'm doing my share to support your portfolio's. Why, I just picked up some Monsanto spray the other day (good old roundup) to give your bio tech stocks new life in the ongoing skyrocketing cancer market once the bread hits the table.

Funny how food manufacturing is the U.S.'s top industry... and how those mergers of food giants with bio giants are looking increasingly suspicious of getting you sick and keeping you there, to the benefit of the consumer, of course.

Yes, good old consumption. Say, have you ever really known anything in science to be "consumed"? Physically altered, maybe. We all know that capitalists make excellent environmentalists, now, don't we.

And we all know that there is no such thing as dependents in this world. Kids, moms, cripples, sick and elderly should work and make their way like the rest of you hard working capitalist folk, right? Dependents are so lazy.

Cause, let me guess. You hard workin' righties did it all on your own. Created the languages you read and speak, built the roads and cars you drive in, independent, so saith your bank, right? And let me guess, you created the monetary system, and banks and governments and their systems and crooks, you did it all on your own. So independent. Right through to your deaths, I'm sure. Capitalist, neocon, IMAC and the rest, you all must be so very tired of having to do it all by yourselves. It sure is a good thing that popular G Bush is there to prop up his younger brother, your hero, Mr. Harper for such a wonderful job well done.

Canada first! Middle Income families first! Business first (cause we all know we can't function without greedy businessmen and their unsatiable appetites)!

Until it begins with "the world first or the universe first and last but certainly not least, "life first" you'll know why I see you three as last. At the back of the line. Its where you guys need to be and really are, until you stop profiting at the expense of all other life, nations, and the environments that support their existence.

Oh,yea bet your a real fan of Tom Flanagan the dirty racist pig advisor to Harpo on Indian Affairs .

Cycling Commuter
As I said, I like a lot of what you post, not all by any means - willy happens to be a favorite of mine is all. I think you've a wee blind spot about unions too from time to time although even on that point we'd probably find some agreement. On WILL, imo you're missing the boat though.
cheers

Do you know the way to San Jose?
I'll think about the fries!

Duncan (Sask Farmer)
Once again, as I said last night, good to read you; good to know there's still one real prairie province with real prairie people still living there - takes me back.

It really kills me when somebody gets something they never had before and then complains that it's not enough.
Can this be described in one word ? GREED 9 entitlement. Oops that two words. I guess I just wasted a word.

I AM Clueless
On that, greed I mean, I'd certainly grant you expert status

Hannibal
What part of my last post don't you believe ?
Do you not believe that Canada allocates 8 billion dollars per year to The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs ?
It's true. How can you say I am making it up as I go ?
And by the way, the recent budget gave students who get a scholarship or bursary tax free status.
You are clearly out of touch with reality.

And you, clearly, can't read and don't know how to learn.

G West I am in love with your comments.

I as well am a prairie man and my real name is Duncan (oh the irony..), but yes please keep commenting I enjoy your views.

Alcibiades
Your criticism is stupid and only bolsters my point.
And what is my point ?
We spend 8 Billion dollars per year on The Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs.
We are not getting any value for this expenditure.
Even the Indians realize this. Why don't you ?

Dear Clueless one: If you had taken the time to check you would see that hannibal above here some 5 hours actually posted a link to a government website illustrating the actual expenditures of the federal government on assistance to First Nations - the vey question you decided you would so brilliantly bell him with.

As others have noted, your foot is definitely on the gas pedal but the clutch is disengaged.

Malcolm
Thanks for the kind words.
"We shall not spend a large expanse of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time --
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,..."
There's work to be done, the idiots have taken over the asylum.

"What puzzles me is the lack of a coherent attack by women of childbearing age on a policy that impacts them and their priorities more than anything. Maybe the media just refuses to cover it. Any ideas?"

Childcare, for all its importance, is simply not "sexy" enough for reporters. Women who are getting the short end of the stick in the Conservative plan are far too busy to mobilize and speak out on this issue. It is the stay at home mom that has the time to work fundraising for their kid's school and take their baby to mommy and child yoga that have the energy to get a reporter's attention. In my opinion, the mainstream media has gotten extremely lazy over the last few decades. The Sean Holman's are the exception and not the rule.

Beautiful G. Absolutely beautiful .
Did you hear Andrew Coyne(Irrational Post)comments on the budget .
He said " This is a Liberal budget not a Conservative budget and it is full of dishonesty"
Damn near fell off my chair when he said that he is such a little cheerleader of the neo-cons.
A Liberal budget !! Imagine that ?
Chantel Hebert as we predicted said that Harpo is playing a seriously dangerous game by courting the Quebecois at the expense of Ontario .
She also figures Charest is a dead man walking and living on borrowed time.
She said that it would explode on Harpo and cost him any chance at a majority .
I hope he continues to play this stupid game .
Did you notice at the three amigos summit recently held in Mexico he started all his comments off in French never deigning to speak his natural language .
What a clown !

High Chris. One answer may be that the neo-cons are cutting funding to all researchers who don't agree with their POV.

When I interviewed University of Toronto child care expert Martha Friendly recently, she sounded tired and demoralized. Her child care research unit was rumoured to be under the knife by Harper's bureaucratic lackies, and to add insult to injury, anti-child care lobbyists had been spreading false rumours about alleged misappropriation of government funds given to a pro-child care lobby group Friendly belongs to. Game, set and match. Cut funding to the researchers, pro-child care lobbyists and activists and send them into a tailspin while your army of REAL women tries to convince working Canadian parents that they don't really need all of those pesky child care spaces when they can just stay home and collect $1,200 instead.
This is bribe money plain and simple to his evangelical right wingers .
Too bad it will only produce a handful of votes for the idiots because women are a whole lot smarter than the neo-cons give them vredit for.
If you disagree with someone just gut their funding and that will shut them up .
While radical fem groups like REAL women have no problem finding fumdingg to further their sick,twisted agenda .
This was taken from an article currently appearing in the Tyee .

hannibal
This trainwreck is proceeding so predictably that I can't hardly believe it. Murdock is in full flight on the mommy thread this morning. I almost posted a small note last night there to welcome him - I think he may actually be the founder of REAL WOMEN.

Gonna be busy for the day, I leave them to your tender care, my friend.

The BUSH Harper budget is a great exercise in spin, it appears to give something to everyone but the net effect will be insignificant. Getting rid of the childcare plan of the Liberals will continue to hurt working families. Walking away from the Kelowna accord seems to be a new trend in Canadian politics where previous agreements are simply ignored. Was there any money for the military icebreakers promised during the election or was this just a cute diversion by Karl Rove-light?

If the barely Prime Minister had wanted to really help Canadians,he could have reduced the Employment Insurance payroll deduction since it is generating huge surpluses. The Auditor General reported in 2004 that 2 billion had been added to the over 40 billion surplus. The Canadian Labour Congress pointed out that the federal government stopped contributing anything to the fund since around 1996, paid out 7.6 billion to workers but took 8 billion out of the fund for general revenue. Reducing the employment insurance payroll deduction would give people more income and reduce the cost to business. A reduction in GST only helps if you spend a lot but most Canadians have seen their incomes plunge over the last few years.

Campbell and Harper believe that we must get ever closer to the USA just at a time when the rest of the world is moving away from the Death Machine south of the border. Canada needs to find other trading partners with economies that are actually growing not the fake growth in the USA. How can the USA economy be growing strongly if Household saving rates went negative for the first time since the Great Depression in 2005 and are still negative?

I am concerned about the absolute destruction of the environment and the social fabric that has occurred in BC being repeated on a national scale. Working locally is one antidote to the massive propaganda at the Federal and Provincial level.

Take care all and thanks to everyone for sharing their experience and perspective. These are great discussions that never seem to make it to the national media.

Because you don't like Shakespeare that invalidates him CC? I wonder if your words will be remembered in a few hundred years.

Add my heavy sigh to the chorus.