[Benn]

Wow, that would have been interesting, if I have read it. You are involved in politics and throw that out to the public? Take it from a former party organizer and a politics 101 class, you need to cut all that down to a 100 word sound byte or it is unsellable to the public. You might win the vote of your economics professor though, thats two votes.

[Winnipegger]

Benn Benn:

Wow, that would have been interesting, if I have read it. You are involved in politics and throw that out to the public? Take it from a former party organizer and a politics 101 class, you need to cut all that down to a 100 word sound byte or it is unsellable to the public. You might win the vote of your economics professor though, thats two votes.

Read the bullet points. The rest is for those who want details to back up the claims. Here on internet fora (forums), especially political ones, people demand details to backup such bold claims. Note even here people demand even more detail.

Let me keep it simple: pay off the damn debt, then abolish income tax. Short enough?

[jeff744]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Benn Benn:

Wow, that would have been interesting, if I have read it. You are involved in politics and throw that out to the public? Take it from a former party organizer and a politics 101 class, you need to cut all that down to a 100 word sound byte or it is unsellable to the public. You might win the vote of your economics professor though, thats two votes.

Read the bullet points. The rest is for those who want details to back up the claims. Here on internet fora (forums), especially political ones, people demand details to backup such bold claims. Note even here people demand even more detail.

Let me keep it simple: pay off the damn debt, then abolish income tax. Short enough?

I think if you had made the 100 word post most of us would have laughed you out, it's hard to take anything seriously in an OP when it isn't either long or providing a link to source material.

[QBC]

Hmmm...funny how some "members" only show up at election time. Makes me think that maybe they're on someones payroll or something, just a thought.

[dino_bobba_renno]

QBC QBC:

Hmmm...funny how some "members" only show up at election time. Makes me think that maybe they're on someones payroll or something, just a thought.

I'm bought and paid for by the GWEMS "Grandmothers Who Enjoy Male Strippers" coalition. It's degrading but a buck’s a buck. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go shake my money maker.

[QBC]

dino_bobba_renno dino_bobba_renno:

QBC QBC:

Hmmm...funny how some "members" only show up at election time. Makes me think that maybe they're on someones payroll or something, just a thought.

I'm bought and paid for by the GWEMS "Grandmothers Who Enjoy Male Strippers" coalition. It's degrading but a buck’s a buck. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go shake my money maker.

[ShepherdsDog]

He's admitted that he's wanted to run as a Liberal candidate in the past.

[QBC]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

He's admitted that he's wanted to run as a Liberal candidate in the past.

Yeah? Hu, I've considered running for office too, it's just the line up for the lobotomy around election time that always deters me.

[KorbenDeck]

source http://www.fin.gc.ca/tax-impot/2010/html-eng.asp

*note that i do not think EI should be included in this since they pay for themselves and do not really count as revenue and spending.

Canada spends 11% of our federal budget on debt. So if we pay off our debt that means we have an extra 11% to spend. I read your post a few times but I need to see more numbers backing it up. You are talking about increasing other taxes to make up for a loss in 48% of the federal income, HOW? To make it easier i need to see a direct chart that says "Reduce income from this by x amount will be offset by increased income from that by x amount"

If the federal government stopped writing checks to Canadians, cities and provincial governments than sure maybe we could do away with federal personal income taxes. That would mean doing an about face on being a socialist nation. I would personally say that most Canadians expect, and demand that the federal government pay for more and more programs and services, thus personal federal income tax is here to stay regardless of a national debt.

[OnTheIce]

Lemmy Lemmy:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

While they did repay some of the debt they ran up, The National debt under Chretien and Martin increased, not decreased.

That's bullshit and I proved it was bullshit the last time you said it. I provided the StatsCan data then and here it is again:

YEAR DEBT
1980 - $90B
1985 - $175B
1990 - $377B
1995 - $550B
2000 - $511B
2005 - $450B
2010 - $525B

Canada's national debt when Chretien left office was about $450B, which is virtually the same number that it was when he took office. As a percentage of GDP, however, debt FELL during Chretien's term in office by about 1/3. On the other hand, Mulroney's term in office saw the debt balloon from $150B to $450B...it TRIPLED under Mulroney. Since Harper took office, the debt has climbed by another $100B and counting.

It's bullshit because you take one group of Stats and ignore the actual government figures. And now I see you're using the "Net Debt" statistics.

That's fine. I'll call your numbers bullshit, too.

[OnTheIce]

dino_bobba_renno dino_bobba_renno:

Oh forget it , I found your chart. It's at "Liberal.ca". Nothing bias there even though the numbers shown aren't supported any where else.

This is a much better graph and probably much more accurate. It includes both debt and %GDP:

So, a graph provided by the Liberals clearly shows that under Chretien and Martin, our debt increased.

Thanks

[DerbyX]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

So, a graph provided by the Liberals clearly shows that under Chretien and Martin, our debt increased.

Thanks

Only if you guys don't read it properly. Sigh. OTI, we have had this debate many times and I have proven conclusively that it is simply not the case. In addition Lemmy has taken you to task.

The debt you keep charging the Liberals with include the end of year account for 1994 when they took office in late 1993. By all rights that entire debt should be the PCs responsibility since that was their budget.

I however gave each party a % of the debt based on time in office.

You make the same error at the other end, handing Harper all the credit for a surplus he had no responsibility for. By applying the same time in office logic I reached the conclusion that the Liberals were only responsible for adding a paltry 17 billion (as opposed to the 55 billion Harper added last year). So from the moment Chretien took office until the time Harper took office the Liberals were responsible for adding 17 billion. IF we want to treat it fairly and give total budget credit were its due then the entire end of year accounts for 1994 is PC and 2006 is Liberal meaning they will have actually slashed the debt by some 30 billion.

It is a CERTAINTY that under Martin, had he won in 2006, we would have continued slashing the debt so it is extremely dishonest of you to claim that the Liberals were somehow inept fiscal managers because they increased the debt (a charge you will not level against Harper EVER despite the fact that he will not be in charge of the CPC or country before even their own forecasts for eliminating the deficit.

In addition to these inconvenient facts take another good look at that graph. Its familiar because I posted it before but what's also telling is the black line showing debt-GDP ratio. See it plummeting under Chretien/Martin (and rising under Harper). Even if you are adding to debt if you are decreasing the ratio you are doing good. Its like owing 10000 when you make 50000/year and even if you owe 10or 11K after 10 years that's OK because you are now making 75000.

Less %tax money went to paying interest. In fact in the Macleans article I posted many years ago it showed that we went from paying about 60 cents per dollar to debt servicing to less then 35 under the Liberals.

There is no doubt about it. The Chretien/Martin Liberals were fantastic stewarts of the debt/deficit and Harper is not.

[OnTheIce]

DerbyX DerbyX:

You make the same error at the other end, handing Harper all the credit for a surplus he had no responsibility for. By applying the same time in office logic I reached the conclusion that the Liberals were only responsible for adding a paltry 17 billion (as opposed to the 55 billion Harper added last year). So from the moment Chretien took office until the time Harper took office the Liberals were responsible for adding 17 billion. IF we want to treat it fairly and give total budget credit were its due then the entire end of year accounts for 1994 is PC and 2006 is Liberal meaning they will have actually slashed the debt by some 30 billion.

It is a CERTAINTY that under Martin, had he won in 2006, we would have continued slashing the debt so it is extremely dishonest of you to claim that the Liberals were somehow inept fiscal managers because they increased the debt (a charge you will not level against Harper EVER despite the fact that he will not be in charge of the CPC or country before even their own forecasts for eliminating the deficit.

In addition to these inconvenient facts take another good look at that graph. Its familiar because I posted it before but what's also telling is the black line showing debt-GDP ratio. See it plummeting under Chretien/Martin (and rising under Harper). Even if you are adding to debt if you are decreasing the ratio you are doing good. Its like owing 10000 when you make 50000/year and even if you owe 10or 11K after 10 years that's OK because you are now making 75000.

Less %tax money went to paying interest. In fact in the Macleans article I posted many years ago it showed that we went from paying about 60 cents per dollar to debt servicing to less then 35 under the Liberals.

There is no doubt about it. The Chretien/Martin Liberals were fantastic stewarts of the debt/deficit and Harper is not.

Speaking of "inconvieient facts", why is it that you completely ignore the reason WHY Harper ran up the debt?

Why do Liberals, many who called for immediate stimulus spending (and who supported the measures and budget) suddenly throw it back in the face of Harper?

Why do you ignore the fact that the Liberals were willing to push this to an election because Harper wasn't spending fast enough?

And Derby, don't put words in my mouth. I'll never deny the fact that Harper has run up the deficit but unlike some, I won't forget why.

As you'll notice from the graph above, the debt under Harper did steadily decrease until the often-forgotten-by-Liberals recession hit.

[dino_bobba_renno]

DerbyX DerbyX:

It is a CERTAINTY that under Martin, had he won in 2006, we would have continued slashing the debt so it is extremely dishonest of you to claim that the Liberals were somehow inept fiscal managers because they increased the debt (a charge you will not level against Harper EVER despite the fact that he will not be in charge of the CPC or country before even their own forecasts for eliminating the deficit.

OnTheIce never claimed the Liberals were "inept", he simply stated that it wasn't true that the national debt on the whole increased under Chrétien/Martin which is true no matter how you look at. While you can reason it any way you want at the of the day it’s a simple fact.

He was also simply contradicting Winnipegger posted a chart that only showed half of what happened under Chrétien/Martin and not the full story and also contradicted Lemmy’s numbers; the ones that only Lemmy has access to, has no sources for and which contradict most published findings. The chart I’ve put up is not bias in any way, it is simply the numbers that out for public consumption. They don’t favour the Conservatives any more than the Liberals.

[Lemmy]

dino dino:

He was also simply contradicting Winnipegger posted a chart that only showed half of what happened under Chrétien/Martin and not the full story and also contradicted Lemmy’s numbers; the ones that only Lemmy has access to, has no sources for and which contradict most published findings

I gave the source of my stats: Statistics Canada. If you want to pay for the Cansim search, you can have them to. Don't put it on me that you're too cheap to check the facts as I've reported them.

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

It's bullshit because you take one group of Stats and ignore the actual government figures. And now I see you're using the "Net Debt" statistics.

That's fine. I'll call your numbers bullshit, too.

Well, I hold a PhD in economics from MIT. Where'd you get yours? If you won't take a non-partisan, professional economist's professional opinion, well, what can I say? Believe whomever you like. But that's the beauty of facts: they remain true whether you believe them or not.