http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2013/02/13/calgary-rural-doctor-struggle.html

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Milke+time+abolish+billion+tariff+poor/7940764/story.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2013/02/04/nb-dorchester-wind-turbine-problems-700.html

To put gold in perspective…

All the gold ever produced is a cube 20 m by 20 m.  Yes there is more being produced all the time but you can’t print it.

These documents outline every dollar spent by the Federal Government.  The ones I focus on here are:

• Volume II – Details of Expenses and Revenues
• Section 6 (Transfer Payments)

If you break down each Federal Government Department you can categorize the tax dollars spent in three ways:

• Department
• Other
• Transfer Payments

Department

This is the unionized bloated bureaucracy that is government.  The pencil pushers, expense accounts, etc. that make government.  A certain level of this is ultimately required in any government but as usual as the scope of government creeps this expands uncontrolled.

Other

The various departments have agencies (CBC, HRC etc.) that are under its jurisdiction.

Transfer Payments

These are the giant novelty cheque items that the Federal government uses to buy your votes.  If you read the document you find all sorts of subsidies, bailouts and other personal & corporate welfare schemes.  This list of all the transfer payments is depressing.  It just goes on and on for 282 pages.

I have posted on this before and I call it ‘Debt by a Million Giant Novelty Cheques‘.

I personally think 95% of these expenditures should not even be made at all.  But if you did indeed want these to be in the scope of government it should be local (i.e. municipal or provincial) not federal.  These items are wealth re-distribution plain and simple.

The Federal Government should handle the bug picture items that impact all Canadians such as:

• national defense
• civil & criminal justice system (i.e. police, courts and jails)
• interprovincal jurisdiction issues
• international relations

So lets look at what the Federal Government spends its money:

Now lets look at the big picture:

Transfer payments are pretty equal to personal AND corporate income tax combined.  If we off loaded all of these bailout, subsidies and welfare schemes on to the Provinces where they belong we could eliminate all income taxes (personal and corporate).  I know  am lumping these all together and there are some items that are ‘justified’ transfer payments but those are the minority.

There would now room for the Provinces to increase provincial income taxes to pay for the bailout, subsidies and welfare schemes that they choose to fund.  If British Columbia wants to bailout the forestry sector then British Columbia taxpayers would pay for it.  If Saskatchewan wants to bailout farmers then Saskatchewan taxpayers would pay for it.  If Quebec wants $7 / day daycare then Quebec taxpayers would pay for it etc.

The reality would be that the Provinces would never fund these crazy schemes and the over all tax burden would drop significantly.  The bigger impact would be the exponential growth of the economy which would benefit everyone including low income Canadians.

This is the problem with Federal politics.  There are really no practical limits on what the Federal Government can do and thus you see what amounts to bribery.  Vote for me and I will bring you a giant novelty cheque.  To make matters worse we go into debt to keep paying for this.  Its time to start talking about changing the system for the better.

Speaking of paying a fair share of taxes…

Source: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/stts/gb08/pst/fnl/html/tbl5-eng.html

Update 2: Fixed… now with population distribution AND income %

Update: It’s wrong (sort of).  The original % are of returns not income.  Working on a fix (it’s worse than this!).

I have been wanted to generate this for a while but SDA finally got me off the couch.  SDA gets results!

Source: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/stts/gb08/pst/fnl/html/st2ca-eng.html

Notes:

• 2009 data
• watch the reference tables – they duplicate some income brackets
• The split is really Bottom 52% Top 48% and the others are pretty close

The income cut offs and number of returns (again approximate) are:

• 746,000 Canadians paid $0 in taxes
• 48% = <$35,000 (14,560,000 tax payers)
• 52% = $35,000 (10,400,000 tax payers)
• 38% = $80,000 (2,562,000 tax payers)
• 28% = $100,000 (1,416,000 tax payers)
• 17% = $150,000 (526,000 tax payers)
• 11% = $250,000 (188,000 greedy rich bastards!)

I will be voting Conservative in the lesser of 3 evils type of stance. Some would say that I should not vote or vote for some sort of independent candidate as a protest vote. If that is your stance that is your choice. It’s my vote and I will place that X as I see fit.

I am happy to see the visiting professor Iggy stumble so badly out of the gate first by avoiding the media questions regarding the coalition issue hours after the dissolution of Parliament and they the botched press release to clarify the issue but only to continue the specter of a coalition with another minority Conservative government.

My call on the election is:

Conservatives – 164
Liberal – 62
NDP – 32
Bloc – 49
Independent – 1

Part of me is torn as to who should win this election. I dread a Liberal government (either majority or minority) but I almost want them to be in charge when the next global economic crisis hits and Canada is finally dragged into reality. They will spend billions in failed stimulus plans and heap on more and more debt. Then and only then will people wake up to the harsh reality of the situation.

Anyway…. When a candidate comes to your doors ask him or her:

- do you support further stimulus spending even if it requires taking on more debt?
- name one Federal department or agency you would cancel in it’s entirety.
- is the anything that the Federal Government can’t or shouldn’t do (i.e. passing laws, regulations, spending etc.)?

Regardless of which way you lean politically get out and vote.

Dan

I agree with Telus. This is not about a ‘greedy telco’ it is about personal responsibility. Canada is becoming a place where it is becoming acceptable and almost encouraged to abandon personal responsibility for your actions and choices. This woman should have known that she was going to see a big bill and Telus should not be expected to have to teach her about data usage on her phone. The iPhone even has a warning on the toggle switch that turns on data roaming: “Turn data roaming off when abroad to avoid substantial roaming charges…”

From a pure capitalistic and free market perspective I am baffled why the phone companies don’t cap data plans at some arbitrary amount rather than deal with the PR fallout from the sob stories such as this.