Location: F'ton
Anyway, this post is directed to the new premier, Mr. Alward, his new cabinet, and the residents of New Brunswick (and it's definitely breaking my guideline of keeping posts to ~250 words). There's a lot to take in here, so grab a coffee or tea, and get at it.
This is going to hurt for some people. I will be called bad names. I don't care. It's time to fix things 'round these parts.
How to fix New Brunswick:
Tax consumption, not income. Why should people be punished for working & earning money? For instance, in my past life, I had built up 11 weeks of lieu & vacation days that I couldn't take off due to being busy as hell. I only saw ~53% of that. The rest was taxed. On the other hand, if people want to own 3000 sq ft homes, drive large SUV's, have every consumer electronic device in their homes and boats & snowmobiles & jet-skis in their garage...TAX THOSE ITEMS!
The cure: lower income tax rates & raise the HST. Make groceries (i.e., fresh produce, bread, milk, basic ingredients, meat, cheese), clothing, books tax-exempt. Give tax breaks to those owning modest homes that are under a certain square-footage (or condo & apartment dwellers). Give tax breaks to those owning fuel-efficient vehicles. Tax the hell out of gas, electricity, booze, cigarettes, unhealthy foods. Reward good behaviour, tax bad behaviour.
Bring back user fees. Why the hell should every person in this province pay for the highway from Fredericton to Moncton? If I use a kayak from the small craft aquatic centre, I pay a fee. If I drive the New Jersey Turnpike, I pay a fee. Where is it in the New Brunswick Declaration of Human Entitlements that says we can't have toll highways? Same with ferry service; why should every taxpayer pay for that service? YOU, Mr. & Mrs Resident of NB, made the CHOICE to live where you do. We are very privileged to be provided Health Care & Education. It doesn't say anything about roads, highways, ferries or anything else.
The cure: user fees. Bring 'em in. Use the service, pay the fee.
Reduce power usage & freezing power rates. Mr. Premier, you promised a power rate freeze for three years. I don't like the idea of politicizing NB Power as it has a job to do as a business, and businesses, for morally better or for worse, seem to profit better without government interference. BUT. You promised it, and the myopic people of this province will scream bloody murder if you don't do it. Let them eat cake. Here goes...
The cure: Remember the declining block rate? Well, I have one better: Behold!! I give you the INCREASING BLOCK RATE!! Households have a block of power of 1100 kWh frozen at today's rates ($0.0985/kWh) for 3 years. Households that go over that pay a higher rate. A much higher rate. Something like $0.14/kWh). There. Rates are frozen for three years, as promised. And incentives are made for people to consume less. Truth hurts, huh?
Find a niche industry and make NB the best for it. Something like the aerospace industry for PEI. Or pharmaceuticals for Boston. Finance for Toronto. Mining & exploration for Vancouver. SOMETHING. And not call-centres. You can't draw talent & creative types to move here (or back here) with fucking call-centres.
The cure: Read Richard Florida's books: The Rise of the Creative Class, Who's Your City? and The Great Reset. Read David Campbell's blog, It's the Economy, Stupid. Realize that the old industries of forestry and fishing are behind us. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing & expecting a different result. Learn something new.
Cut costs to the civil service. Our civil service is foolishly large. I've heard something like 1 in 8 jobs in NB is a civil service job. Really? If that's true, that's probably along the same ratio Soviet Russia. Anyway, because everybody except me has a civil service job, I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this one. F**k it. So after we offer everybody we can early retirement, and put a hiring freeze on, and all that other typical "this is how we always do it" bullshit, what next? Well....
The cure: the civil service works a four-day work week. 36.5 hours per week works out to 9.125 hours per day. Office hours are now 8AM to 6PM, Monday to Thursday. Think of the electricity saved in those buildings. Think of the gas saved by not having to commute on Fridays. They joke that nothing ever gets done in a government office on Friday afternoons, now it's true! Employees don't like it? They can be given an appropriate severance package and the positions filled by people who WANT to work a four-day work week. There's an old-timey expression that should be written in the legislation for four-day work weeks: Go F**k Yourself. You're either part of the solution or part of the problem, which is it?
To my fellow residents: WE are to blame for this. You and I. Through a combination of narrow-mindedness, greed, fear, apathy and ignorance, WE let our province get like this. WE lined up with our hands out for the status quo. WE caused governments to fall over bullshit issues like toll highways and car insurance rates, while companies walked away with millions of dollars in forgivable loans and schools deteriorated. WE sat by and idly watched complete idiots get jobs & positions that they have absolutely no skills or RIGHT to do. WE spent all our money on snowmobiles & big trucks & big houses and 50" TV's and went into debt and didn't save any of our earnings.
The truth of the matter is:
You're stressed out over your shitty job? You choose to work there.
You're stressed out over home renovations? YOU made the choice to buy a house.
Kids stressing you out? That was YOUR choice to have children.
There's no jobs here in _____? YOU chose your career and YOU choose where to live.
You don't have enough money? YOU chose what to spend it on. YOU chose your employment.
The government has and always sucked? YOU CHOSE IT!!
So. As I wrote above:
YOU'RE EITHER PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM.
That's all I can say for now.
5 comments:
Some points are valid but the rest is very rant-ish. Some people chose to live here because their family have lived here for generations, ever been to Ft McMurray? I rest my case.
Taxing over consumption is a great idea, so is taxing the rich - but it's not going to happen until everyone understands that the economy isn't a religion and many things are far more important - i.e., the environment.
You really want to fix things, build more schools and provide the best education possible.
I don't deny it is rant-ish. In fact, on twitter & facebook, I called it a rant.
I don't call the economy a religion, and most of my points have a very pro-environmental underside to them: use less electricity. Use less gas. Have smaller homes & vehicles.
Residents chose to hold gov'ts feet to the fire re: toll highways & car insurance INSTEAD of ensuring schools are structurally sound.
I choose to live in NB because I want to. All my family & friends are here. I've lived & worked elsewhere, but I came back. I make my own way w/o screaming at the government create jobs.
And feel free to use your name in comments. I'm not that mean.
A few comments:
First off, I know you are not for abolishing the income tax, but rather than saying "tax consumption, not income", the mantra should be to find the proper balance. You want to encourage people to do two things:
1. Save money
2. Spend money
They are not contradictory; the key is to find the balance. Income taxes encourage consumption, sales tax encourages savings. Balance between the two is key. I think a good approach would be to flatten income taxes (no more brackets) and lower them a bit, then bring the HST back up to 15%.
Also, I dislike your idea of giving tax breaks to people with smaller houses or more fuel efficient cars. Those people already DO have tax breaks. They pay less property tax, less HST on power, and they consume less fuel so ergo, they don't pay as much tax. We shouldn't go out of our way to double penalize people that cross some sort of arbitrary square footage/fuel economy line. It's unfair. Current property tax and fuel tax is at least consistent.
Finding a niche industry is a potentially disastrous situation in the making. What if you build up that niche, attract dozens of companies, employ thousands of people, and then that niche dies? Much more important to ensure that our economy is diverse.
I definitely agree with user fees. I would be happy to pay tolls to drive on our excellent highways. It pisses me off to this day that there was an election in this province that was basically about tolls. What a stupid issue.
Hey Oliver, thanks for the comment. You make some very good points.
You are correct about me not wanting to abolish income tax completely, and yes, it is about balance.
As for tax breaks for efficient homes & vehicles, it is about rewarding good behaviour (more so) by encouraging people to use less resources.
As for niche industries, I should have really called it "cluster industries." Read this post to get a better understanding http://davidwcampbell.com/?p=3847 It's written by an actual economist, not one who has an undeclared minor (i.e., me :P ).
Thanks again!
Thanks for that link, I had missed that post. Usually I read everything David Campbell posts.
I still disagree with the tax breaks. There's numerous issues I see with it, one of which is that if you give those people tax breaks, you need to increase tax elsewhere to make up for it. The affect is inadvertently burdening others. For example, the person who must rely on a less fuel efficient type of vehicle due to workor having a large family or other constraints, or someone who lives in a large, rural home for whom moving to a smaller residence isn't financially feasible (perhaps an elderly person with little income who owns the property free and clear).
I think the bottom line is that we need to be consistent. That said, I have no problem with other measures that might encourage less consumption of finite resources. A good example are the grants that were issued to homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient.
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