u guys are all being fooled thinking that this whole thing is good for us
dont u guys see the pattern here...first they lie to the public and announced the hst, and now they decide to increase msp
i would not be surprised if there will be more hikes to be announced in the future

http://www.revscene.net/forums/stop-....html?t=585919

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I swear to god that Taylor guy is a Liberal party employee. I'm not kidding, on any post on this board that has anything to do with the Liberals, he is pro-stance. Give me a break.

Tax is Tax .. you don't like it u can move ...
but these thing should be brought up for discussion and debate ... not just imposed on us with no choice

it's alright I guess I'll be sticking to eating at home more. Otherwise we still pay 12% regardless.... If you think about it.

What are the decisions that don't require a debate?

I really think we elect who we want to govern us and want them to govern without making a public vote out of every decision. I think in general people expect good government to happen.

I'm a conservative, BC lacks a conservative party, so the Liberals are the next best option.

I actually really like the BC Liberals. They cut and balance budgets, reduce taxes and support business. The federal Conservatives OTOH are acting like a bunch of loose wallet lefties, giving away money to anyone that cries for it. So there you go, I'm a conservative and I will criticize the party I support too.

Most people on this forum are uneducated and just like to complain to hear their own voice. Read more about the issues. this is why I sound like a political campaign manager, cause I actually read about them and have an educated opinion on them.

you may read into politics a lot more than 99% of the ppl here, including me. bc politics and public persona here is much different than east coast politics. we arent the first to be handled any grants or gifts from the gov't. we are the last in the chain.

Your type of attitude towards gov't decisions would be great as porn star as you will just sit there, accept the fact you accepted the job, and take it, even if you didnt sign up for "that part" of the job.

Gov't is elected, it is THERE JOB to keep us informed, of all major decisions that will affect the public. Sure the pickings are slim, and sure we will not always agree on every single decision, but it is THERE JOB to keep us informed. As a whole, i side with the liberals, however, that doesnt mean i agree with every single decision they make. Id be damned to let the NDP go into power, they will just spend and spend and spend, and then spend some more, then make excuses the spending was necessary to fix what the liberals did 10 years ago.

And its our right to voice our opinions.

the issue is the liberals want to bring in the HST, they did not announce that the feds would give them a break in period with funding UNTIL after the public outcry. sounds to me like a political move, testing the waters to see public reaction to the intro of HST, then if there was an overly strong reaction opposing it, then they would announce the fed's support.

re read what the original estimated deficit was compared to the actual. seems like a recouring theme with almost anything this liberal gov't has touched, fudge the numbers. all i ask is a 20% margin from the original estimate, not 500% margin.

BC politics is certainly different, I was expecting a lot more lefty liberal views, finding out the BC Liberals arevery conservative fiscally was a huge plus.

I'm from Ontario. The Ontario economy for most of the last 50 years has supported those "grants and gifts" so I know about those all too well. Not only did Ontarians not get them, we paid them, to the tune of $8B to our second-world country province, Queerbexico, next door.

BC isn't the last in the chain, and with Harper, the West is much better represented.

LOL

Trust me, I'm very unwilling to take certain decisions, yet I am for the HST. I'm appalled by the public outcry, since most of it seems uneducated complaints, not actual criticism. There are faults in the HST, yet few here have hit on any of them.

Most just don't want to pay more/different tax, and sorry, to those people, their vote doesn't count. That's like blindly saying "all politicians are crocks" or "my taxes pay for homeless people to sit around", ...

Agreed, yet the opposition parties did not mention the HST either. All politicians kept us in the dark on this, so just blaming the Liberals is pandering.

Ah, politics, like euchre, save your trump card.

It all depends on context. 6% margin of estimating revenue is reasonable to me.

Doubling the original deficit from $500M to $1B would only be a 2.5% shortfall of revenue, yet a 100% increase to the deficit. This is why I hate sensationalized reporting. 2.5% revenue shortfall is reasonable to expect, yet the public only looks at 100% deficit increase.

Imagine if they estimated a balanced budget. Oh my god, the deficit was infinitely times greater!

That's because the BC Liberal party is separate from the federal Liberal party. BC Liberal party is actually much closer to the federal Conservative party in their policies.

This is one very unknown fact and people often confuse the BC vs. federal Liberal parties.

I don't know too much about the Ontario governments but I have briefly read that the Ontario Liberals are more like the NDP in policies.

If the cost of living is too much for you to bear then why don't you move to another province such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick??
I'm sure the cost of living in those provinces is a lot cheaper :thumbsup:
Don't complain about the cost of living in a city which has much more demand than other places. Its a privilege to live in such a beautiful city as Vancouver but in all reality it isn't the cheapest city to live in.

I knew the provincial Liberals are different than the federal Liberals (Ontario Liberals are very left, while the federal Liberals were more centre), yet I didn't expect such a huge difference in BC.

The Ontario Liberals balance budgets by raising taxes. The BC Liberals balance budgets with service cuts.

as a business owner, im for the HST.

as a bc resident, im against the HST.

the utopian idea of businesses passing on the saves to the consumer will never happen.

So we can blame you for not passing the savings into the consumer and just pocketing it? :p

Fuck you asshole.

For not paying much tax my dad shit bricks when 50 cents of every dollar he makes goes to paying for your welfare wankslice.

Cars were always pst/gst so I don't know what you're sayin there.

IMHO it will.

In this economic climate people can't afford additional costs which they don't see a return value.

It's insane, a 100 dollar bill is actually (After tip and all) is going to be $127 dollars.

I'm happy I'm not a waiter now because I'm not going to tip shit. It's not like I Can't afford it I just got a fucking massive pay raise, however I'm not going to sit around and get massively ass fucked by the government on booze taxes, HST, and then a tip.

I think you have to get a few realities straight here.

Vancouver is having difficulty now and will inevitably fail to sustain it's residents.

BC now has the lowest minimum wage in the country with near the highest cost of living. What that means is that the people that are buying here and living here do not generate revenue from within the city/province.

It's brought in from abroad. What that means is that as these people move into our vacation city (because that's really what is is, right? Vancouver doesn't produce anything) it's pushing people further and further out.

What it means is that the people that were born here will not be able to live here.

It's easy to say 'why don't you move else where?' but it doesn't solve the basic financial problem that the cost of living is high, wages are low and those that are making money hand over fist generally aren't from Vancouver.

The end result is a city that's like a super model, awesome to look at but completely lack substance.

By fucking its population that loves to live here I think the governments (metro and provincial) are really fucking themselves.

I don't see how people here can afford all of their taxes, pay for a roof over their head, and pay a 12% premium on almost everything.

My friends and I all went to private school, by all accounts we're all standing to inherit a lot of money... and the grim reality is none of us want to live here. Too many costs, not enough upside, you get taxed to death and it's not really easy to start things up here.

Fuck it. I'd rather live in the States and fly up here to go skiing in the winter.

The main complaint I see about HST is that it benefits rich people, and hurts poor people somehow.

The solution to me is simple: Become a rich person! Instead of bitching about everything, go do something to change your situation! Bitches!

That's something I don't get, you get fucked equally, everyone does.

It's not like because rich people have more they pay less of an HST. It's the same for everyone. They can probably just suck it up more than others.

the problem is that the people who are born here, are the ones fucking themselves over. 'we need more social services. we need more environmental protection. we need to give drugs to everyone in the dtes. we need our community centres to all have 60" plasmas. etc etc etc.

those are the people who are making our taxes crazy. even though [some hugely insane percentage] of our taxes goes towards 'health care', these people want more. When theres talk of trying to trim it ever so slightly, *gasp* REVOLT!

unions are the biggest problem imo.

i blame the government for all of this..haha...they just care about ensuring that we don't have a deficit...if we don't...they get a raise...if we do...we get the raise (in taxes)

Jeeze I don't even know where to start with this one other than to say you're an uninformed generalizing idiot.

Lets cause you're living in dreamland.

With one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country and the only province with lots of foriegns and other Canadians emigrating to here.

BC residents also have the highest net worth, mostly property values, yet even with a drop in property values BC personal net worth is very high.

BC is doing just fine.

Oh you mean people make millions elsewhere and decide to live and spend it here. Yes its bad they are making money elsewhere, yet its great they are spending it here.

Boo hoo. That's what happens with density and cities grow in size, eventually the middle class gets pushed out to the burbs or they go to a new city.

If you want to live somewhere that for generations your family wll be able to afford to buy, try a small town. Big cities just don't work that way, tourist town or otherwise.

Sure it does. If enough people leave and minimum wage jobs cannot be filled, things will change. Yet guess what? That means you have to put up or shut up, whining and complaining will get you no-where.

Cities change, and Vancouver is headed towards being a tourist city. It sucks, yet we're on the west coast and far from most major cities. This is why few companies are head quartered here, and doing business here costs more. You cannot exactly move Vancouver closer to major US hubs, or suddenly make the cost of doing business at a distance cheaper, so what's your plan to change Vancouver into a sprawling metropolis rather than a tourist city?

So, how will raising minimum wage add substance? It won't.

More people keep moving here, so obviously they can.

I'll give you a hint:
1. income taxes are much less here.
2. despite the luxury cars you see driving around, there's actually more economy cars here than in Toronto/Montreal/Calgary/... cause people spend more on housing than cars.
3. people own condos without yards and garages, so they have less material possessions and are less wasteful with their money.
4. lots of immigrant families live multiple generations to a single home

You must be in university or a recent grad, cause you talk like someone without any real world experience. Income and corporate taxes are less here than in many other provinces and HST will reduce the cost of ding business.

I hope your family teaches you some business sense before leaving you any money, obviously that private school hasn't taught you much.

I suggest Texas, no state and few municipal taxes.

Before you go claiming you'll pay so much less in tax, look it up. Most major US cities you'll pay:
federal income tax
state income tax
municipal income/school/services tax
municipal property tax
sales tax
road tolls

Add it all up and let me know much much less you'll be paying.