I know the riding season has barely started but I really wish we could fast forward to Oct 27 and say buh-bye to Ford once and for all after the election.
BAHAHAHA...Rob's going to win the next election! I don't care either way since I live outside TO but like I've been telling my liberal/socialist friends, Torontonians are taxed more then most and they (or the majority) will put up with almost anything to save a buck in tax. Don't throw out your Ford Nation t-shirts.
People may question my morals for defending ford and might even think I am just someone with lack of intelligence, but I said it before, I prefer Bill Clinton in Power shoving Cigars up to Lewinsky's vagina and balancing the budget than having George Bush in power going to church every Sunday and ****ing not only the USA economy but the rest of the world's as well
BAHAHAHA...Rob's going to win the next election! I don't care either way since I live outside TO but like I've been telling my liberal/socialist friends, Torontonians are taxed more then most and they (or the majority) will put up with almost anything to save a buck in tax. Don't throw out your Ford Nation t-shirts.
Actually Torontonians are taxed LESS than most. That's comparing real dollars. If you look at city revenues from US cities they raise much less in property tax, but make that up in sales taxes and a 4x larger contribution from the federal gov't. And if Ford really had saved $1Billion, my taxes should be going down and not up by about the same amount they always have over the past 15 years that I have been a homeowner in the city.
Here is an interesting analysis:
http://fordfortoronto.mattelliott.c...to-budget-explained-with-three-simple-charts/
OK. TO is the tax haven of the region (Southern Ontario before you pull statistics for Mexico) Lol.
I think if you take comparable properties, building and lot sizes, across the region and compare your REAL DOLLAR property tax bill I don't think you would still agree with Matt.
And, don't forget TOs land transfer tax for the privilege of buying into TO, user fees, etc.
Now consider the real dollar values of those properties and the percentage tax people pay for them, and you'll see that Torontonians win on both counts. There has also traditionally been a higher rate of service received for those dollars. Mayors have refused to raise taxes with the real costs in the city, for decades, because no one wants to pay the real cost of doing business. As a result the roads are crumbling, the bridges and The Gardiner are failing, the sewers are leaking, and the water pipes are bursting, creating sinkholes in various places around the city.
Bbbbbbbutttt.. The gravy train must stop!!!!
The syntax is acceptable for a title. It's not meant to be a sentence.
"By" is spelled incorrectly for the way it is used.
I'm all for the elimination of waste. If I was a citizen of Toronto I think that I'd have voted for Ford too, based on the poor alternatives, and I try to do just that on a daily basis by advising clients when it makes fiscal sense to replace existing equipment, rather than repair it. I don't like throwing anything out but when fixing something is going to cost 10% more than replacing it, I have a responsibility to raise the issue. Not doing so would be wasting money provided both by taxpayers, and students.
Odd, isn't it, that there hasn't been a whole lot of progress on that whole gravy train thing, isn't it? To the point that Ford has to add things that clearly aren't 'gravy' to his total, to try and get a nice $1B number.
I'd have picked him over the broomstick up the rectum or the cow any day of the week and dealt with the embarrassment. With that being said, I'd vote for someone willing to make the hard choices including raising the property tax rate if he'll spend that money wisely and start working on cleaning up our crumbling infrastructure.
That's true for every urban area on the planet. It's justified by the higher level of services and cost of doing business in the city. The need for more money is piled on when elected nitwits neglect their responsibilities for years under the pretense of "efficiencies" (they're actually cuts). It's even worse than debt because we're stealing from our futures to save money now.I think if you take comparable properties, building and lot sizes, across the region and compare your REAL DOLLAR property tax bill I don't think you would still agree with Matt.
What I can give Rob Ford credit for is getting people to get involved and pay attention to local politics. I used to never know what went on at council and now I pay attention and have concluded most councillors aren't worth the space they take up.
Now it looks like we have another rogue mayor in GTA and this time, guess what ... the gravy train actually does apply 100% in her case.
I will argue ... that the attention is for all the wrong reasons. It's about who did he run over today in the council, why was he the only one voting against things .... it's not about people being genuinely interested what's going on or not going and should be going on in their city and local politics in general.
There is no gravy train. Just look at the city budget posted a few post up. Most of the cities tax money goes to basic operation. Toronto has a revenue problem not a gravy problem.