It’s probably the Libertarian in me, but I’m afraid there’s
a hard line about a spending deficit. The line for me is that at
no time, ever, should a gov’t spend more than it takes in.
Prime Minister Harper cut taxes and for that I thank
him. Having said that, no one should confuse the GST tax-cut
as a means to reduce the burden on tax-payers. In reality it
was to reduce gov’t revenues to handicap the Liberals. Good
strategy, easy sell, obvious advantages. The down-side of
the cuts though is that there is less revenue. Less revenue
without a corresponding change in spending means that a
deficit is a real possibility.
It’s time to stop the spending. The last budget increased
spending like there was no tomorrow. There were no cuts,
regardless of the opinion of artists, that money they whined
about was “shifted”, not saved.
It’s time to be conservative again.
So, aside from the obvious: HRC, CBC, Wheat Board,
military, what other areas can the Conservative gov’t cut to
get out of the red?
Cheers,
lance
How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.
How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.
How about starting with the elimination of the per vote subsidy of political parties. Not much money in the big picture, but I think in the end the spending savings will come from a lot of little stuff.
Gun Registry .
How about the GG’s costs? Gun Registery.Tax-free perks to politico’s.How about just cutting the size of the damn government itself??????
The Conservative votin’, freeloadin’ farmer subsidy, of course.
Arts funding.
That way Quebec separates and Canada can keep its money.
lance, I can’t believe you are serious. Scratch the military from your list, Okay?
Pull Canada out of the UN!
Stop aid to the 3d world.
Privatize education.
Privatize healthcare.
Privatize the crown corporations.
Stop reissuing the IDs every 5 years, do it every 15-20 years.
Strip religions of tax exempt status, same as I have to pay GST whey buying from Goodwill store.
I can go on for hours, but this is the most costly list.
The hypocritical, Conservative, War On (some) Drugs.
The (sucking up to Uncle Sam) MISSION.
Strip religions of tax exempt status
Here, here.
The 600 to 800 MILLION we the taxpayers give to the CBC every year should be cut to ZERO
See Chrysler , for hints .
It is not a good time to cut military spending.
CBC
Global warming nonsense (get out of Kyoto)
Gun registry
funding for leftard groups
Section 13(1)
Index MP’s entitlements accordingly to the markets they keep buggering around with . Can’t remember where I saw it today , but ” huge financial gains always seem to stay privatized , whereas huge financial losses always seem to be socialized ….”. Feel our pain entitled ones , it’s our dime anyways .
Privatize Healthcare
Privatize Education
Stop Funding the CBC
Stop Funding the Arts
Stop giving money to the Natives
Stop Funding the Museums
Get rid of Gun registry
Stop equalization payments
Eliminate all charity status for ALL religious orgs
Privatize the military
Privatize the police
Stop all Corporate Hand outs
Stop bailing out the banks and Stock Markets
And give me the tax cut I deserve.
No more subsidies for Bombardier
Close down or privatize the BDC
No more Court Challenges Program
Dump the Publications Assistance Program
Disband Heritage Canada
Take all money wasted on useless Aboriginal programs and shift it to the military.
Forgot to add…
Canada only needs one official language. Eliminating French, our linguistic vestigial appendage, will save a tonne of dosh. Will also be good for the environment as we won’t have to print everything in French as well and waste all that extra energy and paper (something even you lefties can get behind, nie?).
Nothing wrong with a small deficit considering the Federal budget is just over $200 Billion.
Everybody get upset about deficits and Canadian GHGs without getting the numbers and putting things in proportion.
Most everybody falls back into their doctrinaire feeeelings and spout great proclamations verging on ad hominem. I guess ‘numbers’ are too confusing unless it’s only adding or subtracting .. but multiplying and dividing becomes too complex and confusing.
Stop all funding of multiculturalism
Stop all Government Regulatory Agency, food inspections, regulating the banks, environmental regulation, etc,…
Stop all subsidies to farmers
Stop all subsidies to Political Parties
Get rid of the Government
Stop building schools with tax dollars
Stop funding Universities
Stop all Government Grants
Stop aiding 3rd world crap holes
Sell off all Crown Corps
Sell off all Government assets
Stop holding election (300 million a shot is way to much)
Privatize the Prison System (let the crooks feed themselves)
Observant,
Spoken like a true Liebral Statist
How about keeping the asspiles of money we send to corrupt dictatorships in “aid” every year?
and get rid of the damn Wheat Board as well.
cut equalization to newfoundland till Danny Whine for Wine Williams comes and begs for the money, naked, prostrate and with a large dill pickle inserted in his obvious reverse mouth.
danny whine for whine . on the outside looking in.
and to Quebec mange merde.
Anywhere Stephen Harper cuts the budget will (likely) either offend his Conservative base or be turned into a scandal by the Media, Liberals, Block and NDP (or both).
Now, one thing I wonder is how big of a risk a there is of a Deficit and how long lived it would really be.
I could be wrong, but in the very near future the combination of the return of credit, the risk (reality) of high inflation, and the poor performance of conventional investments like stocks will push more and more investors back into the commodities markets which will return resource revenues to what we saw earlier this year.
Yup, legalize marijuana. The Fraser Institute estimates the Canadian government could generate $2 billion annually through such a move… actually, that money is already being generated, it’s just not going to the government, who instead is spending money to fight the damn stuff with much the same effect as during the prohibition of alcohol.
Legalize it, license small farmers to grow it, tax it, let the potheads smoke themselves into oblivion, and privatize health-care so I don’t have to subsidize anybodies bad habit(s).
Kill the gun registry
End bilingualism
Start making natives pay their own way
Stop subsidies to Quebec
Setup a government department whose only purpose will be to shutdown other government departments that have outlived their usefullness (except for itself).
Privatize medicine.
Medicare is by far the largest budget item for most provinces and, even though I make a damn good living off it, I’d love to see it terminated. Really good physicians could then charge what they’re worth instead of being paid the same as the guy who just barely scraped through his exams. I very much doubt that government would do this but I can dream.
Can’t believe I forgot about decriminalizing cannabis (thanks for bringing this up Anonymous Coward). Right now the BC marijuana industry is considerably larger than the BC forest industry and all other agriculture combined. By making it legal BC would also see a huge increase in the number of tourists coming in to imbibe of what is probably the highest quality cannabis on the planet.
Yawn……
Dont any of you remember last spring when the same scenario happened?
See what the numbers are at the end of the quarter, or year.
How about just cutting the size of the damn government itself?
Might work, but then we’d be saddled with a bunch of people (hundreds of thousands!) needing to find work in the real world.
Being formerly coddled, unionized and accustomed to pushing paper, politics and job-preservation tactics, this might be the final ruination of our economy.
Maybe Swift’s Modest Proposal is a solution; after all, aging improves the taste.
. “Really good physicians could then charge what they’re worth instead of being paid the same as the guy who just barely scraped through his exams”
I didn’t know there was a correlation between “grades” and competency in a profession. I assume you are a physician and I wonder if you have a display in your waiting room showing your standing in your class. I also assume you must have been first. After all if your not first, second is the first looser.
Horny Toad
Hey Manny, check the calender.
This is October.
Food Freedom Day in Canada was last Feb 04, 2008.
Food Freedom Day is defined as the day a person has made enough money to buy enough food for the whole year.
So who exactly is getting the biggest food subsidies?
Oh well, its better to prove you are totally out to lunch than to just have everybody think it.
1) Gun registry: and run in forensic accountants.
2) HRC’s/after cops raid it.
3) Wheat Board / Forensic accountants
4) CBC lock the doors, sell it off
These 4 should be cut at the same time and as quickly as possible, first.
Cut native spending by 1 billion each year for ten years or till gone.
One Law For All
Cut all multiculturalism spending anything hyphanated Canadian
Free federal licences, permits,etc online.
I really like loki’s Bill “setup government department whose only purpose will be to shutdown other government departments that have outlived their usefullness (except for itself).”
Preston Manning can be “Minister Of” with Mart Laar as special consultant.
“When Mart Laar began his second term as prime minister of Estonia in 1999, the country was in the midst of a fiscal crisis. The collapse of Russia’s economy the year before had left Estonia’s stock market reeling, and the government was struggling to fund the benefits promised by Soviet-era social programs.
Laar realized that the only way for Estonia to weather the crisis was to finally leave behind the legacy of its communist past. He announced deep cuts to paternalistic state welfare pro”
http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/laar/
The government has legislated a paydown on the debt. All this talk of a deficit, how does the debt payment factor in? Which is bigger, the paydown or the deficit?
Legalize marijuana? If we were the only country in the world it might work. Canada signed a narcotics control world convention agreement many years ago and to officially abrogate that would be a disaster.
Any savings would be more than offset by the fact that our border with the USA would immediately slam shut and all our economic activity would grind to a halt. something like 75-80% of our economic activity is across the US border. About the only thing that would be left for us to do would be to sit around and toke up as there would be no jobs left.
mid island mike
Horny Toad: academic standing in medical school has a high correlation with competency in medicine but not with how satisfied patients are with a doctor. I wasn’t in the top of my class but usually the top 1/3.
Medicine is the only profession where a physician just out of residency is paid exactly the same as a physician with 20-30 years of clinical experience. In any other profession people are paid on the basis of their demonstrated competence in their field. In private medicine, plastic surgeons, for example, have at least a 10-fold difference in how much they will charge for various procedures. I’ve seen breast implants done by cut-rate surgeons and some of the best and the difference was striking.
Right now the only way for a GP to increase their income is to push more patients through/day and find other ways of making the practice more efficient. This results in doctors that work in city walkin clinics providing inferior medical services making 2-3 times more than physicians who spend the time required to workup a patients medical problem. I can’t wait for socialized medicine to end in this country.
Double or triple MP salaries, this will hopefully eliminate loser single issue candidates and make room for people who are smarter and can do something. Limit MP’s to two terms and cut the pension.
Elect the Senate or some form of regional house.
Kill the gun registry.
Close CBC TV – keep radio, but don’t let CBC decide what or who to keep. Sell TV assets.
Limit CRTC to spectrum issues – not content.
Shut down all HRC’s.
Cancel Multi-cult spending.
Weed arts, public works, etc funding.
Contract out what can be
On and on….
The Conservatives created it, the Conservatives must kill it. The CBC must die.
lots of good ideas.piperpaul’s is best. for all you athiests, without the ten commandents we have no morality. but what the heck. governments will never cut spending because we are firmly attached to the government teat and will be so forever. there is nothing in this country that does not receive money from the public purse at some point. as for any cuts in government spending any announced cuts are only cuts in proposed increases not an actual cut from the current cost.
Start making natives pay their own way
loki at October 25, 2008 12:17 AM
Cut native spending by 1 billion each year for ten years or till gone.
One Law For All
richfisher at October 25, 2008 1:38 AM
Thanks for pointing out my priority. Killing the Indian affairs dept. would guarantee a balanced budget. however, my plan is not to cut it. It is to be distributed at 1 bill/yr for every registered native (not just the band chiefs) sans the Indian affair buracrats. Finacial planing classes would be a must to cash said cheque. after 10 yrs no more funds and no more guilt. Lets see the libs bring that back. ( I’m ok with a one time bulk payment also. after that, no more Dept.Of Indian Affairs}
This is not racist! Allowing that dept. to exist in its present form is.
Axing the CBC is the bonus round
Correction!!
It is to be distributed at 1 bill/yr for ALL registered natives, distributed equally…
NOT I bill each!
Sorry bout that one
“This is not racist!”
Actually, technically, giving money to people based on their race is racist.
Further, where did you come up with the $1,000,000,000 figure? Your ass, I assume.
“Posted by: loki at October 25, 2008 2:22 AM”
Whiner!
By the way, I’ve been having this pain, and can you tell me what you think is causing it?
Good idea, manny: nix the afghan mission. After all, there are no terrorists or threats in afghanistan, eh? No worries to our security. Can we then sign you up to be travelling wherever the next 9/11 takes place? Likely within (2) years of the obammessiah’s inaugaration.
Back under your bridge, manny.
As for the rest of you who want to see religions stripped of their charitable status, be sure to talk to all the support groups, charities and outreaches that are supported by organized religions, because they’ll feel the worst brunt of your misplaced anger.
Or hadn’t you thought of that?
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm
Oops, I guess my comment got hung up because I put a link in there.
Anyhooo. Apparently Ujhal won by 22 votes after the judge decided NOT TO OPEN ALL THE BALLOT BOXES!!!
Guess there is more than one way to lose a majority
You can check it out over at Joanne’s at Blue Like You to which I give a H/T to Karol via Joanne.
Check out Karol’s link in the post prior to the most recent to read about the connections between the Judge and the Liberal party.
No matter what you cut, you will offend someone. So any political party has to play that game carefully. It might gain some votes from one group while alienating another. Timing is important. I would start with the gun registry–except that the money has already been wasted and we can’t get it back. Is anything salvageable out of the colossal mess and what would it cost to either dismantle it or turn it into something useful? (You never get out of these things free.) It would be a good time to go back to the Auditor-General’s reports. Start there. One of the areas mentioned was the many unaccounted dollars that go into aboriginal programs–that somehow never seem to make their way towards helping the people themselves.
Education? Whenever education budgets are increased, I have seen that money used to expand services that are not properly the purview of the educational system (school lunches, sports facilities improvements etc.) Often, the offices of the Director absorb a lot of cash in make-overs. More directors are hired. Computer programs for keeping track of attendance and marks–usually very expensive and poorly designed–these absorb huge dollars.
Buried deader than PET >>>> “‘the War in Iraq bankrupted America’.”
I’m entitled to my entitlement$.
The State is Our Enemy.
…-
“No way out
The Claremont Institute has a long and informative history of the central issue of in American politics: the size and scope of government. The dry recitation of facts is inexorable. Although it is fashionable to depict politics as a war between welfare state liberals and small government conservatives “the welfare state battle between liberals and conservatives has been as evenly matched as the one at Little Big Horn between Sitting Bull and Custer. Real, per capita federal spending on Human Resources was 15 times greater in 2007 than in 1940.” Human Resources spending is an OMB term for
* Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services
* Health (excluding Medicare)
* Medicare
* Income Security (excluding Social Security)
* Social Security
* Veterans’ Benefits and Services
Author William Voegeli’s tables should hammer the final nails into the coffin of the charge that ‘the War in Iraq bankrupted America’. Human Resources, not National Defense, has been top dog by a long chalk for decades. And it will get bigger still. Consider this chart.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/10/25/no-way-out/
Scratch the museums from your lists, or in 50 years no one will remember what Brown Bess was.
Welcome to the center, Mr. Harper.
Keep the right happy by cutting taxes.
Keep the left happy by continuing to provide services.
Screw over everybody so that you can stay in power for another 4 years. Every party does it. Every party will continue doing it.
If its about free market principles, Farm subsidies should be the first to go, right up there alongside arts funding.
I am sick and tired of farmers relying on some passe rustic imagery to justify their existence in an industrial/service-based economy. If the goods you produce don’t bring enough money in, switch careers.
I am sick and tired of artists relying on some new age eclectic imagery to justify their existence in an industrial/service-based economy. If the goods you produce don’t bring enough money in, switch careers.
These are the first two that need to go, but the list goes on. Do we really need a military? Them Americans arent going to let anyone touch us regardless of whether we have one or not. They don’t want a foreign power to use Canada as a landing and staging point. We can give them cheap oil in return.