[Glen]

Some biased quotes below...
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/748420--your-day-of-financial-reckoning-is-nigh-toronto

On Feb. 16 the city of Toronto will unveil its budget for 2010. Already the city, facing a shortfall of some $400 million to make ends meet, has called on all departments to cut their budgets by five per cent – making this the most highly anticipated municipal budget in years.

Yet this $400 million problem is nothing new. And the problem will only get worse unless the mayor and council are willing to "think big" and consider new ideas for restraining spending or raising revenues.

Throughout this past decade, Toronto has depended on a variety of non-sustainable sources of cash, including bailouts from the province and withdrawals from its own reserve accounts, to balance its budget. Put plainly, the city has been running a structural deficit since the start of the decade.

That structural deficit has grown rapidly, from a $72 million gap in 2002 to a $447 million rift last year

The problem is, at its root, a simple one. From 2000 through 2008, the city's operating expenditures increased at an annual average pace of 5.3 per cent. Yet its main source of revenue, property taxes, increased at 3.6 per cent per annum. It is this wedge between the growth rates of spending and revenue that gave rise to the structural deficit.

Clearly Toronto's budget situation is a very serious one. It can be looked at in two ways. The city is either spending money above and beyond what its sustainable revenues warrant, or Torontonians are not paying enough in taxes and fees to sustain the city's spending track. The reality is that both perspectives contain some truth, though it's essential to exhaust all opportunities for efficiencies and cost reductions first.

In its search for solutions, the city will also have to keep an eye on its competitiveness. From 2002 to 2007, job growth in Toronto averaged a meagre 1.1 per cent annually, while the surrounding region added jobs at a yearly rate of 2.8 per cent.

One key contributing factor to this state of affairs is the tax burden on Toronto's businesses, which is high compared to the burden on residents. In 2009, residential properties made up the vast majority (72 per cent) of all real estate value in the city – yet these properties account for only 43 per cent of all property tax revenues. By contrast, commercial and industrial properties account for only 20 per cent of real estate value but provide 40 per cent of all property tax revenues.

Such is the problem with structural deficits. The residents and businesses of this city have become accustomed to receiving a certain level of services, so it is a truly unpleasant surprise to learn that, in fact, the taxes they pay aren't covering their true cost. Delaying the search for solutions only allows the fiscal chasm to grow. The city's problem is a big one, and the search for lasting solutions will require some big thinking.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Toronto's business taxes are too high

I was not aware of this.

 

[UserNameToronto]

Dammit clicked on one of Glen's posts by accident.

Troll. Not worth reading.

 

[threnody]

Don't worry, with practice you'll be able to detect a glen post based on the title.

 

[Glen]

I did not write the headline of the article. I didn't even offer any comment. You guys can continue with having your heads in the sand.

 

[Dilla]

I didn't even offer any comment.

The selections of your edits were hardly random, and offer comment in and of themselves. Even you called them biased.
I don't know that other posters are burying their heads in the sand, as much as they're tiring of your constant harping on the same topic over and over.

 

[taal]

While there was a bias it did in effect convey the message the article was trying to portray. Did any of you Glen bashers even read the article in full? Please go ahead and point out the 'extreme' bias in his post.

 

[Dilla]

Please go ahead and point out the 'extreme' bias in his post.

You're the first person to mention an 'extreme' bias. I'm just pointing out that Glen's attempt to act as though he wasn't trying to say anything about the matter is bull-plop. His position on the matter (as if it isn't known already by anyone who's ever visited UT once), was abundantly clear from what he chose to post, and trying to duck out of it by saying he didn't write the piece or even comment on it is disingenuous at best.

 

[Glen]

You're the first person to mention an 'extreme' bias. I'm just pointing out that Glen's attempt to act as though he wasn't trying to say anything about the matter is bull-plop. His position on the matter (as if it isn't known already by everyone who's ever visited UT once), was abundantly clear from what he chose to post, and trying to duck out of it by saying he didn't write the piece or even comment on it is disingenuous at best.

Of course I was trying to say something, I started the thread. If you think I took the piece out of context, demonstrate it.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I don't really take issue with Glen's point, as the city is likely pretty damn screwed when it comes to this year's budget. I was just making a lame joke because I seriously don't get how he has the tenacity to post the same damn thing every day on like nineteen sites across the internet.

I would like to see Glen post more outright solutions instead of just hinting that Toronto should slash programs (which programs?). The living-in-the-suburbs-is-awesome vibe is kind of tiresome, too.

 

[TO City of Light]

Wonderful thread so far but do you realize you are talking about a dysfunctional city in a dysfunctional system, how does that factor in.



.

 

[Glen]

Dammit clicked on one of Glen's posts by accident.

Troll. Not worth reading.

This, from someone who suggested to another to read Keynes.

Here you go.......

Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the Budget. For to take the opposite view to-day is to resemble a manufacturer who, running at a loss, decides to raise his price, and when his declining sales increase the loss, wrapping himself in the rectitude of plain arithmetic, decides that prudence requires him to raise the price still more;–and who, when at last his account is balanced with nought on both sides, is still found righteously declaring that it would have been the act of a gambler to reduce the price when you were already making a loss.

 

[Glen]

I don't really take issue with Glen's point, as the city is likely pretty damn screwed when it comes to this year's budget. I was just making a lame joke because I seriously don't get how he has the tenacity to post the same damn thing every day on like nineteen sites across the internet.

I would like to see Glen post more outright solutions instead of just hinting that Toronto should slash programs (which programs?). The living-in-the-suburbs-is-awesome vibe is kind of tiresome, too.

Come on Matt, If you had seen my post elsewhere you should have come across some of my ideas/solution. From Spacing.....

Cost savings (some would require Provincial approval):

- Move all traffic related enforcement from police to bylaw enforcement.

- End the fair wage program.

- Require that TTC construction be contracted out.

- Contract out TTC station management.

- Modify Transit city to have a shared track, with passing sections.

- Ensure that all infrastructure programs are co-ordinated so that redundancies are eliminated. (eg. replacing water mains on a newly paved street)

- Have specified garbage pick up areas between houses. So if one house places its garbage for pick up at the right side, the neighbouring house on the left would place theirs on the left, Being side by side would eliminate the number of stops needed for collection.

Taxation and revenue:

I would completely revamp the current system. To be replaced with the following:

A single class of property, no more beggar they neighbour polices.

A minimum tax of $1,500 for the first $250,000 of assessment value.

A yearly parking tax of $500 per spot.

The balance of property tax revenue would be generated from a single tax rate, applied equally to the assessed values over $250,000.

Have a single LTT rate for all properties.

End tax cancellations for seniors and change to a deferral.

Move to have TTC fares paid by distance.

Niceties

Potted palm trees on the beach, with a contained water area that could be cleaned and heated.

Seasonal bike lanes and pedestrian areas via lane closures on certain streets (Queen St. comes to mind).

Graffiti cleanup.

plus many more……

 

[Dilla]

Of course I was trying to say something, I started the thread. If you think I took the piece out of context, demonstrate it.

I never said anything about out of context, I said biased, and so did you.

Some biased quotes below...

Of course I was trying to say something, I started the thread.

So, you're trying to comment with biased quotes, and yet...

I did not write the headline of the article. I didn't even offer any comment.

Well, which is it?

Sorry, Glen, but having dealt your single minded obsession with this topic for years now, it's just getting tiresome. If you really wanted a discussion here I think you would have left a comment or question in order to try and direct a debate on the topic, and show some curiosity as to the opinions of others. Instead, you find an article which agrees with your compulsion, do the old "I'll just leave this here", and walk away without really offering anything toward a debate.

It comes off as smug I-told-you-so self satisfaction rather than an interest in what others may think.

 

[Glen]

Dilla,

I did not say that I would not comment. Just that up to now I haven't. I used the disclaimer to head of the ad nauseum rebuttals like yours, that add nothing to the debate. If you don't like the topic, then simply ignore it.

This is a huge issue for Toronto, which is why it's in the media. This is why the Star is making the 2010 budget part of a five part series.