Winnipeg Construction X

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by 3de14eec6a

Flip that around. Everyone should ride for free. I'd happily pay the extra in taxes and almost never use it.

Speaking of never using it reaad an article recently on Bloomberg that looked at multiple municipalities that implemented free transit. Shows that it doesn’t reduce car trips at all. The increase in ridership are from people who would have walked, biked or not taken the trip at all. So from a carbon reduction standpoint (know not the crux of this discussion) it actually increases carbon emissions.

[Lars65]

Seeing as how it was a bloomberg piece, I would take those results with a massive grain of salt.

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

Here's an idea: why not charge the primary users of roads a fee for the service? We expect transit riders and users of city pools to pay for those services, so why isn't there a user fee to use roads, highways and bridges? I can drive my car for free on a city road, but I have to pay $3.10 to ride the bus? (and don't worry, I pay plenty of municipal tax). If you want transit users to pay their share, drivers should do the same. Fair's fair. If 32% of transit’s funding comes from fares, shouldn't some portion of roads be paid for by users?

Maintaining order and safety on transit is another matter. Simply pricing the poor and the homeless out of using transit is not the answer.

Uh...what?

Who do you think pays all the taxes for those roads you ride on? Those same people are already paying to subsidize transit and now you want them to pay more to...what? Fix the roads? The roads they paid for and pay to maintain and that transit riders are riding on at their expense?

You want "justice"? Okay, increase transit fares by about %1000 so that the system is profitable and the riders actually pay THEIR fair share. I mean, as long as you clearly don't know what you're talking about, how about we go to user pay fees for pretty much everything currently provided for through taxes? That way we can tax ourselves on the services we already paid for just like everything else. Why not? We can afford it...can't we?

[rivercity]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Uh...what?

Who do you think pays all the taxes for those roads you ride on? Those same people are already paying to subsidize transit and now you want them to pay more to...what? Fix the roads? The roads they paid for and pay to maintain and that transit riders are riding on at their expense?

You want "justice"? Okay, increase transit fares by about %1000 so that the system is profitable and the riders actually pay THEIR fair share. I mean, as long as you clearly don't know what you're talking about, how about we go to user pay fees for pretty much everything currently provided for through taxes? That way we can tax ourselves on the services we already paid for just like everything else. Why not? We can afford it...can't we?

Lmao

[Authentic_City]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Uh...what?

Who do you think pays all the taxes for those roads you ride on? Those same people are already paying to subsidize transit and now you want them to pay more to...what? Fix the roads? The roads they paid for and pay to maintain and that transit riders are riding on at their expense?

You want "justice"? Okay, increase transit fares by about %1000 so that the system is profitable and the riders actually pay THEIR fair share. I mean, as long as you clearly don't know what you're talking about, how about we go to user pay fees for pretty much everything currently provided for through taxes? That way we can tax ourselves on the services we already paid for just like everything else. Why not? We can afford it...can't we?

Haha, funny.
Seriously, why does transit have to be profitable? Roads, parks, garbage collection, libraries, etc. are all funded by the city taxpayer and nobody expects these services to be self sustaining, let alone profitable. So why do we expect users to fund a large share of public transit (pay their “fair share, as you say), when I can use roads without any charge? I mean, why not charge a small toll to use highways and bridges? Lots of places do and it seems a fair way to fund infrastructure (a “fair share” as you say). For instance, when I was last in Halifax, I paid $2 to drive across the bridge to Dartmouth. Are you saying that’s unfair?
I’m questioning why we fund transportation in ways that prioritize individual car use over other transportation forms.

[3de14eec6a]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Speaking of never using it reaad an article recently on Bloomberg that looked at multiple municipalities that implemented free transit. Shows that it doesn’t reduce car trips at all. The increase in ridership are from people who would have walked, biked or not taken the trip at all. So from a carbon reduction standpoint (know not the crux of this discussion) it actually increases carbon emissions.

That's a little disappointing. I live in a walkable but poorly bus serviced neighbourhood, which is why I wouldn't use it much. But I'm still okay with it being free because the people that do need the bus most, often are those that don't have other choices.

And rrskylar, I pay a reasonable amount of taxes. And I'm happy to, because these things help everyone. Just because you're too selfish to think about others, doesn't mean everyone else is.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by 3de14eec6a

That's a little disappointing. I live in a walkable but poorly bus serviced neighbourhood, which is why I wouldn't use it much. But I'm still okay with it being free because the people that do need the bus most, often are those that don't have other choices.

And rrskylar, I pay a reasonable amount of taxes. And I'm happy to, because these things help everyone. Just because you're too selfish to think about others, doesn't mean everyone else is.

Canadians have never been more ripped off by their governments and the public servants…. And you think people are selfish for being sick of paying over half their incomes in taxes. Money that’s wasted frivolously by corrupt inept politicians. You must have a government job.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Canadians have never been more ripped off by their governments and the public servants…. And you think people are selfish for being sick of paying over half their incomes in taxes. Money that’s wasted frivolously by corrupt inept politicians. You must have a government job.

Your skull must be thicker than lead. In 2020, Canadians:

• Earned a total of $1.59 Trillion in income (including government transfers).
• Paid $286.7 Billion in federal taxes, which represents 18% of income earned;
• Paid $268.5 Billion in provincial taxes, which represents 16.9% of income earned;
• Paid $66.9 Billion in local government/municipal taxes, which represents 4.2% of income earned.

So in total in 2020, Canadians paid roughly 39% of all income earned to all 3 levels of government, which is quite different than "over half". Also, not every household pays 50% income tax - you'd have to be an illiterate idiot living under a rock to think that. You'd have to earn a very high income in Canada in order to pay effectively half of it back to the government.

And yeah, maybe 39% of all income going towards governments sounds expensive, but in exchange for that 39% you benefit from and get access to: national and local road infrastructure, subsidized transit systems, healthcare and hospitals, public K-12 education and subsidized post-secondary education, military, police, fire protection, environmental regulations and protections, local and national parks, community centres, food safety and regulations, subsidized agricultural products, public statistics and data, unemployment and maternity leave benefits, other various social safety nets, and many other services I'm probably forgetting to list.

Obviously I don't expect someone with such a smooth brain to be able to do elementary math, but once you grow up I'd encourage you open up Excel and try to price out what all these services would cost you if you had to procure them for yourself with no outside help from the big bad government.

Given the content of your posts, I'd wager you make little more than minimum wage anyways, which indicates you probably receive more income from the government than you pay in taxes. The aforementioned services you already receive from the terrible and corrupt governments in Canada would likely cost you tens of thousands of dollars to replace every year if you had to procure privately (good luck building your own private road network!), which I doubt your already small personal budget could sustain.

It would be nice if you could improve the content of your posts, or at the very least, fact-check before spewing nonsense.

[biguc]

You know how the whole "defund the police" debate got dumbed down to this "You want to cancel the police are you crazy?" level?

Think about that though. What if we just cancelled the police? Said, "people should keep their money in their pockets; Winnipeggers deserve that $320000000 a year back--that's almost $500 each, and even more when you consider the layabouts who don't pay any property taxes and should, therefore, get nothing."

And I think we all know what would happen. There'd be more crime.

The people who own the most property--and therefore pay the most property taxes--would suffer the most, because they have the most property to get damaged and stolen. They'd almost certainly be out more than the money they saved by cancelling the police.

Eventually, property owners would end up coughing up a lot more than $500 a year to secure their property. Security guards aren't cheap, even if the economy has turned to shit thanks to all the nasty knock-on effects of out-of-control crime, and there are lots of unemployed people. (But you could get a job in security!)

Some neighbourhoods would get wise and collectively hire groups of security guards. They'd get a better rate thanks to economies of scale. Plus, with the same group handling the whole neighbourhood, they could even give them special powers to detain people.

Other neighbourhoods would have gangs rise up in the power vacuum. They'd run protection rackets, which might be cheaper than the formal security companies, but not if your legs are worth anything.

By gun or gab, anyway, these services would gradually amalgamate. And why not? It would save administrative costs and reduce jurisdictional problems. One day, it would be possible to extend one security umbrella out over the entire city, including neighbourhoods that don't pay for it. It's just easier, more effective, and cheaper that way.

Maybe even as cheap as things were before our pound-foolish asses got rid of the police and spent decades figuring out how to have police again.


I don't know why some of you look at Cape Town or Juarez as model societies.

The happiest people in the world pay a lot of taxes and get a lot in return. Danish people aren't rubes happily gifting their money to inept politicians. Obviously Winnipeg and Manitoba's governments aren't at a Danish level of competence and transparency, but sweeping the pieces of this whole society thing onto the floor isn't the answer.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Your skull must be thicker than lead. In 2020, Canadians:

• Earned a total of $1.59 Trillion in income (including government transfers).
• Paid $286.7 Billion in federal taxes, which represents 18% of income earned;
• Paid $268.5 Billion in provincial taxes, which represents 16.9% of income earned;
• Paid $66.9 Billion in local government/municipal taxes, which represents 4.2% of income earned.

So in total in 2020, Canadians paid roughly 39% of all income earned to all 3 levels of government, which is quite different than "over half". Also, not every household pays 50% income tax - you'd have to be an illiterate idiot living under a rock to think that. You'd have to earn a very high income in Canada in order to pay effectively half of it back to the government.

And yeah, maybe 39% of all income going towards governments sounds expensive, but in exchange for that 39% you benefit from and get access to: national and local road infrastructure, subsidized transit systems, healthcare and hospitals, public K-12 education and subsidized post-secondary education, military, police, fire protection, environmental regulations and protections, local and national parks, community centres, food safety and regulations, subsidized agricultural products, public statistics and data, unemployment and maternity leave benefits, other various social safety nets, and many other services I'm probably forgetting to list.

Obviously I don't expect someone with such a smooth brain to be able to do elementary math, but once you grow up I'd encourage you open up Excel and try to price out what all these services would cost you if you had to procure them for yourself with no outside help from the big bad government.

Given the content of your posts, I'd wager you make little more than minimum wage anyways, which indicates you probably receive more income from the government than you pay in taxes. The aforementioned services you already receive from the terrible and corrupt governments in Canada would likely cost you tens of thousands of dollars to replace every year if you had to procure privately (good luck building your own private road network!), which I doubt your already small personal budget could sustain.

It would be nice if you could improve the content of your posts, or at the very least, fact-check before spewing nonsense.

Imagine you make $35,000 a year… 1/4 to income taxes.. now you smoke a pack a day… you pay $3,000 in property taxes, own a vehicle and buy gas, pay gst/pst on everything you purchase. Do the math… over half your income is taxed. Not hard to figure out.

[drew]

^ I guess said person really should consider quitting smoking.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by drew

^ I guess said person really should consider quitting smoking.

Lol. It’s a legal vice. With a tax that disproportionately hurts lower income people as lower income people are more likely to smoke.

[Hecate]

Same with alcohol taxes. Lower income people are more likely to develop alcohol dependencies.

[drew]

Your argument is that someone is paying too much tax, but also smokes a pack a day and now apparently drinks a lot..?

I dunno. Maybe find another method to prove your point.

[Hecate]

Lol. Why I proved it. Many are paying more than half their incomes in taxes. But they are low income and make bad choices so you don’t care…

[Hecate]

You think it’s acceptable that the federal and provincial governments exploit addictions?

[drew]

I feel for people with addictions. But that doesn't mean that things that "tax" healthcare and emergency services shouldn't also be taxed accordingly.

Ultimately, you have a choice whether or not to smoke and to drink - whether you are addicted or otherwise. You choose, you pay.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Imagine you make $35,000 a year… 1/4 to income taxes.. now you smoke a pack a day… you pay $3,000 in property taxes, own a vehicle and buy gas, pay gst/pst on everything you purchase. Do the math… over half your income is taxed. Not hard to figure out.

Someone who makes $35,000 a year only pays 21% income tax in Manitoba. Plus, at that income bracket depending on their situation in life, they are likely getting a significant chunk of that back through some sort of government transfer like CCB payments.

Also, people who make $35k and are struggling probably should think twice about smoking and liquor if they can't handle the cost. Carrying the costs of a vehicle on that income is also very onerous, which is why public transit exists in urban centres.

As for the property tax, if someone is a single-earning household at $35k/yr and owns a house that's worth around $300,000 (the equivalent of $3k/yr property tax), they are doing very well for themselves. Most people making $17 an hour and living alone in this city are renters, not home owners living in average neighborhoods.

Your example doesn't really make me feel sorry for this "fictitious" person who can apparently own their own house and car, and afford regular vices, while still having half their income after tax.

[WinCitySparky]

Hahahah is this guy really trying to make the case that people who abuse themselves and cost the system should have to pay LESS into the system? Get out of here buddy.

[bomberjet]

There is never a real argument to 'defund the police'. It's 'reform the police'. They need accountability. Get rid of the union. Actually serve the people. Instead of dumping copious amounts of cash due to fear mongering, dump the cash into social programs to actually prevent crime, not react to it. Winnipeg has just dumped cash at the Police and look where we are. Now they need never ending raises. They are over budget again and we'll just pay the bill for it?