New Deal Part II

http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/columnists/tom_brodbeck/2011/03/19/17687031.html#/news/columnists/tom_brodbeck/2011/03/19/pf-17687031.html

When I first read this I thought it was another of the Suns April Fools jokes.
Then I realized its more than a week until April.

How about posting some ideas about raising revenue to attack the infrastructure deficit? This city has been run by vision-less fools for 50 years. Those same fools have let the city grow well beyond reasonable (sprawl) and they've not kept the roads and bridges up to par. Well guess what? The piper wants to be paid. And we don't have the money.

Everybody and their dog whines and bitches about tax/levy increases all the while whining and bitching about the state of our 1) roads & bridges; b) community centres; iii) police force; 4) b1tch de jour...

brodschuck thinks if only we cut the bloated city bureaucracy the city will be saved. The problem with that idiots' position is our bureaucracy can only be a small part of the problem.

So there needs to be some innovative and creative ideas put forward. That committee is at least doing something. What are the whiners and bitchers doing about matters? What does brodschmuck do? b1tch. He seems to have all the answers. Why not contribute?

A 1% surtax on gas is a good way to make users help pay for the roads they drive on. License fees for cyclists will do the same. Make developers pay for full development where today none exists. Impose a 1% city tax to help pay for the services we all demand such as police and fire.

Do this until the city catches up. And then, one by one, eliminate them.

Or let's continue to whine and b1tch. How has that served us so far?

raising taxes inside the city without legislated corresponding taxes outside the city is idiotic.

Deank wrote:raising taxes inside the city without legislated corresponding taxes outside the city is idiotic.

Why should taxes be legislated to be raised outside the city just because the city can't contain their own spending habits?
This would be like your brother forcing you to buy a new car just because he bought a new car even though you have 6 kids to feed and he has none.
Perhaps a better idea would be for the 3 levels of government to get together and decide which services they would fund and provide.
And stop duplicating any services if there are any.

The problem faced is people moving outside the city to avoid paying city taxes yet using the city services, roads, infrastructure.

So Deank is right. There needs to be a way to manage taxes that the municipalities need. Perhaps the province must be more properly engaged...

Sorry GOM, but I have to agree with your buddy Tom.

Before we look at ways of raising new revenue streams, we must look at reducing the size of government...the bureaucracy.

Without doing so, the bureacracy will continue to expand and there will never be enough revenue to meet those expanded requirements.

Look at the bloody authors of the report....my good friend Reg Alcock...who never saw an idea he wouldn't spend money on.....and Chris the Construction Guy....guess where his interests are?

First, got to agree with the point that I'm also not sure if we're even getting what we're paying for now.

But, I do see merit in these types of levies. Get this sh1t off property taxes. Not sure what the value of your house has to do with infrastructure renewal? Not sure how you can charge a gas tax in Winnipeg, when all you got to do is drive 5 minutes to save the money. Time for the province to step in, as distasteful as that may be for them having to talk to anyone who is not anti-business.

I think Sam still has some cleaning up to do within the civic bureaucracy.

Outsider wrote:

Deank wrote:raising taxes inside the city without legislated corresponding taxes outside the city is idiotic.

Why should taxes be legislated to be raised outside the city just because the city can't contain their own spending habits?
This would be like your brother forcing you to buy a new car just because he bought a new car even though you have 6 kids to feed and he has none.
Perhaps a better idea would be for the 3 levels of government to get together and decide which services they would fund and provide.
And stop duplicating any services if there are any.

I totally agree. It is a shitty idea. But the only idea that will work if Winnipeg were to raise taxes.

A much better idea would be to slash the bloat at the civic, provincial and federal levels. Less spent on bloat, more to "trickle" down to where it is needed.

Trouble is it would be a trickle.

By all means tackle the city bloat. Anyone have any idea as to what that would free up in terms of $$$'s?

What is the civic workforce? 5,000? Does that include police and fire/paramedic? Does that bring it down to about 3,000?

What percentage of that is bloat? 5%? 10? 25?

3000 employees; average salary: $50,000
5% 150 $7,500,000
10% 300 $15,000,000
25% 750 $37,500,000

I could accept 5-10% being a reasonable bloat number. Lets lop 10% off our civic workforce. Take the resultant $15 million annual savings and spend it properly.

$15 million won't even put a dent in our needs. Where do we get the remaining billions to cut our infrastructure deficit?

Creative assessments such as gas taxes, city taxes... Have the province manage those taxes province wide and dole the monies out on a population percentage. Easy as pie...

"Trouble is it would be a trickle.

By all means tackle the city bloat. Anyone have any idea as to what that would free up in terms of $$$'s?"



"A much better idea would be to slash the bloat at the civic, provincial and federal levels."

Best estimate? 80 billion country wide.

The level of bloat and the federal and provincial levels is quite tremendous.

Perhaps we start with something we might have control over. Then expand it. In the meantime while we wait what happens to the infrastructure deficit?

They are all our government. We control it all right?

Heh heh. Yeah. Sure.

We can't even get selinger and his ndp bozos to run the hydro line down the right side of the province saving hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Billions maybe.

LOL WHOOPS!!!!

on hot103 right now. Join us on Global news tonight for yada yada. (prepare for weather) AND join us tonight to see why TOWNS and CITIES in WINNIPEG are asking for a new tax to help with infrastructure.

russ wyatt was interviewed a few minutes ago on citi fm. Shadoe soft-balled him left, right and centre. Why do "reporters" even bother if they won't ask the tough questions?

The pussies are afraid that they won't ever get another interview.

It really shows how hicksville they are....RRCC sucks eh.

As annoying as marty gold was he was not afraid to ask the questions I wanted asked....

Speaking of marty gold: http://tgcts.blogspot.com/2011/03/cathy-rushton-mocked-kick-fm-listeners.html

Dude needs to let it go now. Either sue the bastidges or move on...

I agree that something needs to be done. It seems every bridge, road etc that requires work is a political decision.
Cutting out the waste in government is a good start, however how is that done? The savings would barely make a dent in the massive infrastructure deficit.
I don't know what the answers are, however I would like to see all gas taxes collected in Manitoba stay in Manitoba with the largest amount left in Winnipeg to be used only for infrastructure repairs. I also have no problem paying additional gas taxes provided the money is used for road repairs and not shifter around to balance budgets etc

New streams of revenues will forever be there...even after the roads are fixed. I don't believe that adding new taxes is the answer....they are the easy way out.

Also, this would be an admission that the other money being spent is being spent on legit projects, which isn't the case. (Ex: calming circles and bike paths off the top of my head)

It's hard to cut "programs" but that is what needs to happen. We must get back to fundamental mandates imo....and stay there.

Ok, so how do you get back to the fundamental mandates?
It's near impossible for any politician to want something for the greater good if it hurts their chance for re-election.
So aside from a massive uprising, how can change be made?

Let's start with the amount of money required annually. Pick a number:
* $100 million (if infrastructure deficit is $1 billion it will take more than 10 years at this rate).
* $250 million?
* $500 million?

If our total city budget is $800~ million where do we start cutting? And can we realistically keep cutting levels for a decade or more?

Another question I have is how much has the city budgeted this year and planned for the next 5 - 10 years?

well lets stop paying tax dollars into building NEW infrastructure in new areas to begin with. That will save a few million.

Agreed. So the city needs to grow a set of nads and tell developers that from this moment forward any new development will include all infrastructure needs to service it.

Anyone know how much this cost's the city annually?

What else?

adopt a plow budget and plan similar to Edmonton.