I made the effort to attend the NB finance ministers pre-budget public consultation in Fredericton last night, and took note of some of the numbers he presented. Now as I look at the numbers, I am confused as to why we are struggling to balance the books. It looks easy to me...but I readily admit I am not an economist, or even a great personal financial planner, so maybe I am mistaken.
Here's what I am talking about....Higgs and others have said that NB has a revenue problem, and from what I can see that is true; but based on the numbers presented, I don't see why this is the case. From the 3rd last slide of my Higgs presentation, we could rescind the personal income tax cuts ($320M) and corporate income tax cuts ($25M) put in place by the previous government and raise $345M in revenue. If we went a step further and raised the HST by 2% we would see $270M in revenue. If I do my math right, that adds up to $615M in new revenue. There has been calls from many sources, including the NB Business Council, to rescind the cuts; so there is support there. The HST increase would be harder to swallow and would be resisted more, but it is do-able; especially if you put programs in place to protect low income earners.
It was announced yesterday that the provincial deficit is now $411M, and the provincial debt is closing in on $11B. So if you put the three changes above in place, you could pay off the deficit and start making $200M payments on the debt. Of course, this is assuming that all proceeds of the tax increases goes directly to the deficit/debt...but that is also do-able.
The government continues to saw that their is legislation in affect that says HST cannot be raised without a referendum. So hold a referendum already; or rescind that legislation as you have done in the past. Recently, the legislation was changed to allow the government to change the civil services pension plan, so it is not unprecedented.
My guess is that any political price to be paid for raising the HST would be offset by the political gain of balancing the books. And even if you say you can't raise the HST, rescinding the tax cuts would still raise $345M, which would but the deficit to $66M.
I must be missing something...it can't be this easy. If not, then why the hell is it not getting done?
Friday, February 8, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Don't be afraid to Govern!
A note to all current and future politicians....don't be afraid to do your job once elected...govern!
It seems that some politicians have forgotten that when the public elects them, that means the majority have decided that we trust them to run the office they have been elected to, for at least 4 years.
So when you get the majority of the votes to be premier, we have decide that we want to hire you to run our province for the next four years. If you do a good job, and no one better comes along before the next election, we will hire you for another 4 years. We, as voting citizens, have not asked to run the province, as we feel we do not have the knowledge or experience to do so, or the time, so we hired you for the job you asked to have.
So don't feel you have to ask us before making decisions. If you look at the books and determine that the best thing for the province is to raise taxes, then go raise taxes. Tell us why it made sense to you to do it, and we will judge at the end of the 4 years whether we agree. Remember, sometimes the best thing for us is not the thing we want. My kids never want to eat their vegetables, but I still make them do it. I sometimes really want to have a new car, but that doesn't mean I should remortgage my house and go buy one.
The most respected politicians are always ones who govern with confidence. They are intelligent people who consult with experts, look at all sides of the issue, and then go and make the best decision they can. They do what they think is right regardless of public opinion. They make unpopular decisions, but they make intelligent, well informed decisions, and at the end of the day, they are judged on the intelligence of the decision, not the popularity of the decisions. Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, JFK, Pierre Trudeau, Abraham Lincoln and even Frank McKenna, all made unpopular but necessary decisions in their tenures, but all are remembered as people who did what they thought best and their citizens benefited from it, and eventually thanked them for it.
Now don't take this to mean that you should go make decisions without consulting anyone. By all means, talk to experts and use their knowledge in your decision making process. When considering raising taxes, talk to economists and other government financial experts and make sure they agree that this is the only way to responsibly govern the finances of your jurisdiction.
If your 4 years run out and you haven't done anything but ask us what you should do, you are not likely to get hired on for another 4 years. Make an informed and intelligent decision, and stand by it, for good or bad.
If you ask us what to do, then do what we tell you, and things go badly; we will blame you anyway...you can't put it back on us, that doesn't work. We hired you, so you are responsible, good or bad.
Don't be afraid to do what we hired you to do.
It seems that some politicians have forgotten that when the public elects them, that means the majority have decided that we trust them to run the office they have been elected to, for at least 4 years.
So when you get the majority of the votes to be premier, we have decide that we want to hire you to run our province for the next four years. If you do a good job, and no one better comes along before the next election, we will hire you for another 4 years. We, as voting citizens, have not asked to run the province, as we feel we do not have the knowledge or experience to do so, or the time, so we hired you for the job you asked to have.
So don't feel you have to ask us before making decisions. If you look at the books and determine that the best thing for the province is to raise taxes, then go raise taxes. Tell us why it made sense to you to do it, and we will judge at the end of the 4 years whether we agree. Remember, sometimes the best thing for us is not the thing we want. My kids never want to eat their vegetables, but I still make them do it. I sometimes really want to have a new car, but that doesn't mean I should remortgage my house and go buy one.
The most respected politicians are always ones who govern with confidence. They are intelligent people who consult with experts, look at all sides of the issue, and then go and make the best decision they can. They do what they think is right regardless of public opinion. They make unpopular decisions, but they make intelligent, well informed decisions, and at the end of the day, they are judged on the intelligence of the decision, not the popularity of the decisions. Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, JFK, Pierre Trudeau, Abraham Lincoln and even Frank McKenna, all made unpopular but necessary decisions in their tenures, but all are remembered as people who did what they thought best and their citizens benefited from it, and eventually thanked them for it.
Now don't take this to mean that you should go make decisions without consulting anyone. By all means, talk to experts and use their knowledge in your decision making process. When considering raising taxes, talk to economists and other government financial experts and make sure they agree that this is the only way to responsibly govern the finances of your jurisdiction.
If your 4 years run out and you haven't done anything but ask us what you should do, you are not likely to get hired on for another 4 years. Make an informed and intelligent decision, and stand by it, for good or bad.
If you ask us what to do, then do what we tell you, and things go badly; we will blame you anyway...you can't put it back on us, that doesn't work. We hired you, so you are responsible, good or bad.
Don't be afraid to do what we hired you to do.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Fight the quick news update temptation
This blog has been turning into a place for me to vent frustration...which I guess makes sense since I put Surly in the blog name. I tend to chew on things for a few days before I finally write anything, so most times I end up chewing the thing up and having nothing to write; but if I chew on it and something is left, I write it down.
A long agitation for me has been people not thinking for themselves; and I don't mean that unintelligent people agitate me; they can't help being unintelligent; what bugs me is when intelligent people follow the herd, or speak without thinking. I am not above doing the later at times...sometime passion and desire for a good laugh get ahead of me and something slips out of my mouth that perhaps should have stayed in the brain for a bit longer.
Most current news media depend on the fact that people are busy and don't have time to research a topic on there own, and thus are primed to swallow a news story whole, rather than chewing on it for a bit. When we form opinions based on headlines and sound bites, we are doomed to slide into the unthinking masses. I am not saying that all media sources should be ignored; quite the opposite, I encourage you to look at as many sources as you can. I usually follow no less than 6-8 news sources a day...and the differences you see in the coverage provide by CNN, CBC, BBC and Al-Jezeera are very interesting. They all have a slightly different take on things. The attachment of most western media to advertising dollars for funding can't help but change the way they cover the news. When you are worried about the size of your audience rather than how factual your information is, you tend to lean towards the sensationalism approach. (BTW, if this interests you, you should check out the HBO show Newsroom)
The distrust we have for politicians, and their seeming refusal to do anything meaningful is largely the result of our sound bite and headline world. The main avenue for politicians to communicate with their constituents is the media...be it newspapers, web based sources or social media, and when the media's main driver is getting viewers, the facts are irrelevant and the juiciness of the headline rules all. Case in point...recently Piers Morgan has been embroiled in the gun control debate in the USA, and because he is advocating stricter gun controls has become the target of those opposed to such controls. So rather than stick to fact based debate, which if you follow to a logical end comes to the conclusion that the lack of control on guns in the USA has lead the developed worlds highest gun murder rate, they have provided a platform for gun zealots to rant and rave. So when President Obama tries to do the right thing and introduce stricter (and sane) controls on the guns people can have; the NRA and other gun advocacy groups will dominate the news coverage because they are better funded and thus louder. I really think most Americans are intelligent people who can see that allowing people to collect automatic weapons is not smart, but the protests by gun supporters will be more entertaining, so will get the coverage.
Another, more local, example is the recent restructuring, by the New Brunswick provincial government, of the unconditional grants to municipalities. The government essentially turned the grant program into a municipal equalization program. The whole idea behind an equalization program is that money is distributed so the "have nots" get more money than the "haves". So the idea is that the communities that are prospering help communities that are not. So the prospering community of Fredericton loses $1 million in grants, and the struggling community of Miramichi gets $1 million more, for example.
The news coverage in the days after the announcement made it sound like the city of Fredericton was going to have to make drastic cuts to offset the loss. One pundit said the loss of the grant was "ground shaking". But low and behold, a few weeks later, the city announces a balanced budget with little or no major job losses or service reductions. In hard economic times, the city has proven that they didn't need that funding they lost. Wouldn't we all agree that most governments can afford to be more efficient with our tax money? This is what is happening here...the provincial government is trying to be more efficient with their funding, and have forced the city of Fredericton to be a little more efficient. I have yet to see any news source point out that the lost grant money is largely made up by the increased tax rolls for the city. The city will receive $4.3 million more property tax revenue this year, which should more than make up for the lost grant money. But is there any coverage of this good news story...no, the coverage of the city's budget continues to focus on the grant elimination; even though when you look at the facts of the budget and think for yourself, the loss of the grant does not appear to have affected the city in any "ground shaking" way.
So, the moral of the story? I guess I am trying to encourage you, dear reader, to think for yourself. Don't give into the temptation of the quick and easy news update; think about what you are hearing or reading...don't just drink the proverbial kool-aid. Do the same with this blog...don't accept my take on things as fact...who am I to present fact; just some cranky guy with Scottish roots!
A long agitation for me has been people not thinking for themselves; and I don't mean that unintelligent people agitate me; they can't help being unintelligent; what bugs me is when intelligent people follow the herd, or speak without thinking. I am not above doing the later at times...sometime passion and desire for a good laugh get ahead of me and something slips out of my mouth that perhaps should have stayed in the brain for a bit longer.
Most current news media depend on the fact that people are busy and don't have time to research a topic on there own, and thus are primed to swallow a news story whole, rather than chewing on it for a bit. When we form opinions based on headlines and sound bites, we are doomed to slide into the unthinking masses. I am not saying that all media sources should be ignored; quite the opposite, I encourage you to look at as many sources as you can. I usually follow no less than 6-8 news sources a day...and the differences you see in the coverage provide by CNN, CBC, BBC and Al-Jezeera are very interesting. They all have a slightly different take on things. The attachment of most western media to advertising dollars for funding can't help but change the way they cover the news. When you are worried about the size of your audience rather than how factual your information is, you tend to lean towards the sensationalism approach. (BTW, if this interests you, you should check out the HBO show Newsroom)
The distrust we have for politicians, and their seeming refusal to do anything meaningful is largely the result of our sound bite and headline world. The main avenue for politicians to communicate with their constituents is the media...be it newspapers, web based sources or social media, and when the media's main driver is getting viewers, the facts are irrelevant and the juiciness of the headline rules all. Case in point...recently Piers Morgan has been embroiled in the gun control debate in the USA, and because he is advocating stricter gun controls has become the target of those opposed to such controls. So rather than stick to fact based debate, which if you follow to a logical end comes to the conclusion that the lack of control on guns in the USA has lead the developed worlds highest gun murder rate, they have provided a platform for gun zealots to rant and rave. So when President Obama tries to do the right thing and introduce stricter (and sane) controls on the guns people can have; the NRA and other gun advocacy groups will dominate the news coverage because they are better funded and thus louder. I really think most Americans are intelligent people who can see that allowing people to collect automatic weapons is not smart, but the protests by gun supporters will be more entertaining, so will get the coverage.
Another, more local, example is the recent restructuring, by the New Brunswick provincial government, of the unconditional grants to municipalities. The government essentially turned the grant program into a municipal equalization program. The whole idea behind an equalization program is that money is distributed so the "have nots" get more money than the "haves". So the idea is that the communities that are prospering help communities that are not. So the prospering community of Fredericton loses $1 million in grants, and the struggling community of Miramichi gets $1 million more, for example.
The news coverage in the days after the announcement made it sound like the city of Fredericton was going to have to make drastic cuts to offset the loss. One pundit said the loss of the grant was "ground shaking". But low and behold, a few weeks later, the city announces a balanced budget with little or no major job losses or service reductions. In hard economic times, the city has proven that they didn't need that funding they lost. Wouldn't we all agree that most governments can afford to be more efficient with our tax money? This is what is happening here...the provincial government is trying to be more efficient with their funding, and have forced the city of Fredericton to be a little more efficient. I have yet to see any news source point out that the lost grant money is largely made up by the increased tax rolls for the city. The city will receive $4.3 million more property tax revenue this year, which should more than make up for the lost grant money. But is there any coverage of this good news story...no, the coverage of the city's budget continues to focus on the grant elimination; even though when you look at the facts of the budget and think for yourself, the loss of the grant does not appear to have affected the city in any "ground shaking" way.
So, the moral of the story? I guess I am trying to encourage you, dear reader, to think for yourself. Don't give into the temptation of the quick and easy news update; think about what you are hearing or reading...don't just drink the proverbial kool-aid. Do the same with this blog...don't accept my take on things as fact...who am I to present fact; just some cranky guy with Scottish roots!
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