BC Budget 2013-14.

[Veovis]

Nope, but it would be what's logical AND needed.

But hiking taxes for the lowest tax brackets is just political suicide for any party. All that gets sold there is "they're taking money from the poor to reward the rich"

Increases to 75K and up comes across as "their attacking middle class"

No matter what i don't think any party will risk that at this stage, they'll wait until they win the next election to do those if they are going to.

[Captain Awesome]

But hiking taxes for the lowest tax brackets is just political suicide for any party.

Unfortunately it is.

[butcher99]

There are a couple of things for sure that will blow this budget. They again cut the amount of money set to fight forest fires and for disaster relief and not for one year, but for all 3. To think that we will not have a hot dry summer for the next three years besides being depressing, is just not going to happen. Some of the figures they put out were just pie in the sky dreams. Not going to happen. Just a few short years ago I was paying $50. a month for my MSP payments. Just a couple years ago it was $100. Next year we will be up to $135. a month or 1620 a year for my wife and I.
The only other province in Canada to actually charge a health care premium is Ontario with a $50. premium for a single person.

[my5cents]

Did I miss something ? All this talk about a "balanced budget".......

If I worked out the family budget and proudly advised my wife "honey, our finances are in great shape, our expenses and spending will be just slightly less than what we take in !"........ "The only thing is, we have to sell the car"

That's a balance budget ?

[butcher99]

they did raise taxes on everybody...one of them is called the MSP premium increase by another 4%, the SIXTH increase in 5 years

Well, let's be honest here. Eight dollars isn't a real increase.

for some people it is.
$8. per raises a LOT of money.

[Gone_Fishin]

Did I miss something ? All this talk about a "balanced budget".......

If I worked out the family budget and proudly advised my wife "honey, our finances are in great shape, our expenses and spending will be just slightly less than what we take in !"........ "The only thing is, we have to sell the car"

That's a balance budget ?

If you have 7,658 other cars, and never drive the one you're selling, it's a great way to balance your budget.

[Gone_Fishin]

There are a couple of things for sure that will blow this budget. They again cut the amount of money set to fight forest fires and for disaster relief and not for one year, but for all 3. To think that we will not have a hot dry summer for the next three years besides being depressing, is just not going to happen. Some of the figures they put out were just pie in the sky dreams. Not going to happen. Just a few short years ago I was paying $50. a month for my MSP payments. Just a couple years ago it was $100. Next year we will be up to $135. a month or 1620 a year for my wife and I.
The only other province in Canada to actually charge a health care premium is Ontario with a $50. premium for a single person.

The big jump in the early 2000s in MSP was to pay for....





...wait for it....



.......union pay increases in the healthcare field. Fact.

One day people lobby for public sector union workers to get pay increases, and the next day they cry because they have to pay for it. We live in a strange world, indeed.

[Urbane]

If you have 7,658 other cars, and never drive the one you're selling, it's a great way to balance your budget.

And if you're the NDP you keep that car that you don't drive and buy a bunch of others to add to the fleet.

[Gone_Fishin]

And if you're the NDP you keep that car that you don't drive and buy a bunch of others to add to the fleet.

And make sure it's a car that doesn't work on BC's roads, and get your union friends to build it for 4 times the price that you can get it elsewhere. Any wonder that an NDP budget is always so deep in the hole to start with, and then gets deeper through the year as stupid decision after stupid decision gets made?

[steven lloyd]

we could get dem dere Chinese fellas to build dem dere cars - $10 a day we pay dem

[butcher99]

The big jump in the early 2000s in MSP was to pay for.......wait for it....
.......union pay increases in the healthcare field. Fact.
One day people lobby for public sector union workers to get pay increases, and the next day they cry because they have to pay for it. We live in a strange world, indeed.

What a pile of bull crap. the increase in wages to the employees paled in comparison to the other rising costs of the time.
Your gut feeling that it was because of Union Wages is called truthiness. An actual word BTW. Truthiness is when you assume your gut feelings are true.
Are you saying that if we start to pay all the healthcare workers minimum wage and no benefits then we could go back to the $50 a month we used to pay? I am sure you believe this however although paying a reasonable wage does cost more, in the grand scheme of running a healthcare business it does not add up to a hill of beans.

[butcher99]

And make sure it's a car that doesn't work on BC's roads, and get your union friends to build it for 4 times the price that you can get it elsewhere. Any wonder that an NDP budget is always so deep in the hole to start with, and then gets deeper through the year as stupid decision after stupid decision gets made?

Truthiness rears its ugly head again. There is no study that has found paying good wages (union) to your employees actually cost more in the long run. Efficiencies brought forward by the companies make paying a few dollars more to fewer employees costs the same. Union employees (much as you will not like this) are older and more efficient than the minimum wage students you seem to feel should have all the jobs.

[logicalview]

Yes when I think of old union workers the first thing I think of is just how darn efficient they are...

[butcher99]

Yes when I think of old union workers the first thing I think of is just how darn efficient they are...

well, you actually should. There have been many many studies by people just like you to prove that is not true. They all find out that there is little to be gained by paying minimum wages and having to hire more people.
I never said "old" I said older as in more mature, better trained and more efficient.

[flamingfingers]

Back on topic for a change:

Liberal insider tears strip off B.C. budget
Martyn Brown says budget will have NDP 'jumping for joy'
Liberal Insider knocks B.C. budget

The B.C. Liberal government likely has the provincial NDP “jumping for joy,” says Martyn Brown, chief of staff to former premier Gordon Campbell, in a scathing critique of the budget during an interview with CBC News anchor Gloria Macarenko Tuesday.

Brown, a longtime Liberal insider in B.C., said the budget had done the NDP’s tax-raising “dirty work” for them.
“The budget basically conceded the tax turf to the NDP,” Brown said.

“I think the only ones jumping for joy today, really, will be the NDP because, effectively, this government has done the dirty work of saying it needs to increase corporate taxes, it needs to increase personal taxes on higher income earners, it’s increasing MSP premiums.”

He said the Liberals basically came up with the very tax agenda that the New Democrats had been suggesting.

“And most of that won’t take effect until next January, a year from now, so you won’t feel it in this election year but you sure will feel it in the years to come,” said Brown.

'A lot to do about nothing'

Brown also predicted the budget will be dead before it has much chance to be enacted.

“It’s not going to matter. This budget won’t see the light of day no matter who gets elected. They’re going to have to introduce a new budget. All the assumptions will be re-evaluated in May and all of the spending will be re-evaluated in May. So really, this is a lot to do about nothing.”

Brown, author of the e-book, Towards a New Government in British Columbia, has been highly critical of the two-year-old Christy Clark administration, and for months has been predicting an NDP victory in the May 14 election.

He says he still is pulling for the Liberals to win, but isn’t holding out much hope.

“Miracles do happen in politics, but it’s a long shot, to put it mildly,” Brown said.