Billions in subsidies to big business

[Klause]

Farmers edge is government subsidized....

Taking government money and farmers money to sell farmers field level highly valuable production info to the markets. Wow.

[furrowtickler]

My question is , what makes this "info" so valuable ? What exactly is the end game on all this "valuable" info ?
Why is there such a scramble for this info?

[Bowerpower]

Farmers edge is government subsidized....

And have been hearing them advertising on tsn 1290 Winnipeg. What a crock.

[Bowerpower]

No doubt Alberta contributes a lot but also receives a lot of federal transfers Health is one. This all needs to be looked at to get the full picture.

In the end incomes in Alberta are higher than the rest of the country so they are doing very well. So I am not sure why they are so hard done by? Its like the rich neighbor down the road who has a lot of oil revenue and surface leases complaining about the high taxes he pays. Everybody laughs at him and says oh that must be soooo hard!

Are you a communist? Asking seriously?

[fjlip]

Equal...

[STR1]

Farmers Edge #41 , $6,100,000.

[Hamloc]

I guess on the bright side the subsidies were invested well in Alberta Chuck2, as you always point out very high per capita income and a large contributor of federal personal and corporate tax. What happened to Quebec? Highest level of subsidization but certainly nowhere nere the top in average earnings?

[chuckChuck]

Are you a communist? Asking seriously?

So Bower, Canada's progressive tax system is widely supported by both Conservative, Liberal and NDP governments. This is not communism if you were wondering.

The more you make, the higher your income tax rate. I know some rich well paid people like to argue that a flat tax would be fairer, but then lower income Canadians would end up paying a far greater share of their income to run the country and pay for services that are used by low and high income Canadians.

One of the problems is that the tax burden has shifted away from business taxes to personal income taxes. The reason this has happened is we end up competing with other countries who lower their business taxes to attract and keep business. Where does it end?

[chuckChuck]

Equal...

[ATTACH]2215[/ATTACH]

That graphic of equalization payments does not tell the whole story. As I have pointed out time and again incomes are higher in Alberta because of oil and gas. After taxation Albertans are still better off with higher incomes.

Equalization is a federal program paid for with federal taxes collected from all Canadians. It can be tweaked but the overall policy goal is good for the country. Without it we become a country of extreme differences in the ability of provinces to provide health care, education and other social programs. It would make many Canadians second class citizens in terms of the services they receive. Do you think that is a good idea?

The start of this post was about business subsidies. It is clear that businesses in Alberta and Saskatchewan which are resource rich, are receiving subsidies per capita equal to or greater than Quebec. Funny how this is not part of the discussion and the only thing many people can think about is how a federal equalization program pays more to Quebec.

[Klause]

Canada has higher taxes than Germany... Yet we have little infrastructure a fairly poor social support system...


But we do have a government that spends $200,000 DESIGNING THR COVER PAGE FOR LAST YEARS BUDGET!!

we pay high taxes for insane government waste. That's it.

And on top of that you make the top 1/3 of Canadians pay for 3/4 of the tax burden.

What does that do? It makes the lower 2/3 increase in numbers and that top 1/3 progressively leaves...

Something socialists have never figured out...

Paying ones fair share is one thing but when that fair (people's) share becomes greater than the share ones keeps for themselves... Why work so hard just say f***k it.