Ontario budget , 2012 - thread #3

ISAC incomesecurity.org implied McGuinty and Horwath were still seeking input. There is still a week before decisions are finalized.  The Ontario budget can be discussed further, and amended to do the right thing in preventing a worsening of the economy through service,  job and wage cuts.  Corporate tax cuts of the Harris era which ruined Ontario's revenue can be reversed, as noted in the earlier thread, and wealth taxes implemented, to pay for welfare/disability cost-of-living increases and other services.  Policy can be used to support collective bargaining, and minimum wages increased- these measures cycle money through the system- when workers are supported, the economy picks up. The same with procurement of local food.  More effective public administration can be retained -rather than privatizing over-sight to profiteering financiers and industry self-regulators.  I really hope the labour and Occupy movements, with others, can encourage parliamentarians to develop a budget on these lines.

This guy wasn't satisfied with his offensive comparing of Andrea Horwath's income tax increase to Ethnic Cleansing, he now comparing her to a pillaging Visgoth of Baystreet's Rome. What ever this guy is smoking I know people who wants some.

http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/fp-comment/blog.html?b=opinion.financi...

Anyone else picturing Andrea in a viking outfit and a battle axe, with a grey haired bankster CEO slung over her shoulder?

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-ndp-drops-key-demand-...

It looks like Andrea is dropping the HST thing for now, but that gives her over a 100 million to play with, what do you think she'll do with it?

The HST cut wasn't really popular anyway around here, so no big deal, maybe the electrity merger thing was a compromise.

Ontario Budget: Andrea Horwath Makes Key Concession to Liberals in Effort to Reach Budget Deal

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1164240--ontario-bud...

"NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is backing off her party's negotiating demand that Premier Dalton McGuinty's minority Liberals cut the HST on home heating bills. While she is has not yet agreed to support the Liberal budget, her concession is significant because it is the strongest suggestion yet she wants to make a deal...

'The direction I'm moving in is in the direction of trying to make it work' Horwath told a hastily called news conference at Queen's Park."

 they will agree to take from those who have little to give to those that have more than enough, and walk away from the increasingly barbaric conditions of the poor in Ontario. This is class war and the NDP have already clearly declared which side they are on. This will also soon become apparent federally.  NDP = No Difference Party.

The Liberals and Tories are ranting on about the whopping budget deficit in Ontario and the need for austerity. 

Pinocchio's Libs are spending more on debt service payments than what's allocated to post-secondary education, transportation, and economic development in Ontario. That's pretty sad. Both parties are for austerity, and austerity will only exacerbate their ballooning debt situation.

Liberal and Tory budgets will lead Ontario down a road to serfdom similarly.

If any two parties are fiscal Frankensteins the same, it is those two same-same parties. They make a good pair and are the most compatible in super-minority government and phony opposition.

Hudak Lagging Behind McGuinty and Horwath in Leadership Poll

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/hudak-lagging-behind-mcguin...

"A Nanos Research Poll shows Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak would be the worst positioned of Ontario's three major party leaders to contest another campaign."

So, obviously no urgency, need or hunger - unlike the underclass she looks like she's going to stiff on this on.

M. Spector wrote:

And it seems they are about to be joined by a third same-same party, come the budget vote next Tuesday.

So Spector and Tim Hudak both want a snap election in Ontario. Anyone else?

This will help Andrea; even if Eric Grenier's analysis of polls is sometimes suspect:

Quote:

Ontario Budget: Polls May Embolden NDP's Andrea Horwath To Trigger Election

The polls do, on the other hand, give Andrea Horwath a good deal of bargaining power. The Liberals know that what the NDP is proposing is popular and that the New Democrats have more to lose in supporting the budget than they do in defeating the government and taking their chances on the hustings.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/04/20/ontario-budget-polls-ndp-andrea-horwath_n_1440111.html?ref=canada

deleted..

McGuinty has said all along that he will neither increase program spending nor increase taxes to placate the NDP, and it appears he has not budged from that opening position. Horwath, meanwhile, has been backpedalling in order to avoid an election.

Looks as if the Liberals are emerging the clear winners in the negotiations.

I think Horwath has been superb in this.  The fact that she has been getting so much public attention, and that the public seems to be in favour of a tax increase because of her work (admittedly, only a minor one on those earning over $500,000, but still, it's a start), is fabulous.  Horwath is excellent.  Her past training in labour negotiation is paying off now, I feel.  The HST concession for a tax increase was brilliant, I feel.  Superb negotiating.  I predict the Liberals will cave.

The Liberals should be reminded of this - I'm sure they wouldn't want people's eyes popping at their electricity bills during an election campaign.

NDPP wrote:

Their 'austerity' budget which is just the beginning of the planned take-aways counts on the usual wilful indifference of most, to remain silent while they further crush those on the bottom. Make no mistake, your elevated position on the totem pole won't save you in the end. McGuinty and TD Bankster Drummond should be told to take their budget and shove it. No deal, throw the bastards out.

Throw the bastards out and you still have the same situation as described in the Drummond Report. An economy growing at 2% and spending without change growing much faster. Ontario can and should increase taxes to eliminate the deficit but that still leaves this problem to be solved or it will return. If the real estate bubble pops, as it must at some point, this all gets worse.

"Cheering crowd"?  Hardly, in Horwath's case.

<a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1165754--ontario-budget-ndp-s-horwath-wants-more-from-mcguinty-before-backing-budget">TheStar</a> wrote:

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the Liberals' surprise $275 million boost for child care and disabled benefits is "a very positive sign" on the eve of Tuesday's key budget vote. ...

Horwath said a sticking point remains the Liberals' opposition to a wealth surtax on people making more than $500,000 a year.

Hudak itching for an election 7 months after the last one costing $100 million taxpayer dollars. Tories must think they can pull out a phony majority in old conservative Ontario.

Stockholm wrote:

I'm not sure why anyone would be heckling Horwatch - she seems to be the best thing that's happened to the ONDP in about 20 years!

Even if one believed that to be the case, what's in the party's best interest isn't necessarily in the province's best interest.

"The very least we can ask for is that the very top earners in Ontario put in a little bit more when times are tough." - A. Horwath

Yes, Andrea, [b]that is the very least[/b] you can ask for. But I'm sure you'll support the budget even if you don't get even that.

I doubt it.

I think there are some who just want to see Hudak take another swing at the fpp'ian cat just 7 months after the last car wreck of an election. They think that 4,000,000+ Ontarians AWOL from the last election will magically turn up at the polls, even though many of them were disabused of their efforts to vote years ago.

And then they would lay blame squarely on Horwath's shoulders for the conservatives being elected to phony majority dictatorial power in old bankrupt conservative Ontario. I think it's that they just don't like Andrea Horwath very much. 

TheStar wrote:

The surtax would cost someone making $600,000 an extra $3,120 annually and would affect about 31,000 wealthy Ontarians.

They won't even feel it.

Fidel wrote:

TheStar wrote:

The surtax would cost someone making $600,000 an extra $3,120 annually and would affect about 31,000 wealthy Ontarians.

They won't even feel it.

The surtax shows a fundamental lack of seriousness about the provincial deficit, his figleaf on this issue. Suppose the average Ontarian making more than $500,000 makes (horseback guess) $750,000. Then the extra annual revenue from the surtax is about 31,000 * 0.0312 * $250,000 = $240 million. (The $570 million number has always been a fantasy.) This is 1/20th of what could be raised by taking the provincial portion of HST to 10%, bringing us back to the combined federal/provincial sales tax level we had in 2005.

In other words, not only is he breaking his promise not to raise taxes, he's being completely innumerate about it.

On the other hand, it's very good politics. Ontario's population is about 13.4 million, and there's only 31,000 taxpayers targetted by this measure. Making promises to 99.75% of the population based on taking from 0.25% of the population works beautifully in a democracy. 

The Liberals only need one vote to pass their budget. If Horwath has made a deal, she should show her leadership and cast that vote herself. If they wanted to, the rest of the NDP caucus could abstain.