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Mayor John Tory's Toronto

Don Peat ‏@reporterdonpeat 5m5 minutes ago
John Tory says Rob Ford's claim that he would have won election is like saying Leafs would win Cup if they had extra players & time #TOpoli
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Nice analogy!
 
Palma said:
Tory does not seem the type that is concerned with popularity. He promised to keep taxes within line of the inflation rate and I am sure he realizes with the employment situation as it is, large mortgages people are carrying, that raising property taxes higher was not the way to go.
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Makes you wonder what business those preaching fiscal responsibility have carrying large mortgages in the first place - especially knowing that rates can be, depending on the type of mortgage, very sensitive to increases (and things are already pretty rock bottom)

AoD
 
Palma said:
Tory does not seem the type that is concerned with popularity. He promised to keep taxes within line of the inflation rate and I am sure he realizes with the employment situation as it is, large mortgages people are carrying, that raising property taxes higher was not the way to go.
Click to expand...


Ha! That's a good one!
Tory is basically only known for his inability to make tough choices or stake a position in order to stay popular.
This city is underfunded and underserved by the higher governments and that isn't about to change. So, we have taxes, fees and "revenue tools" in our tool belt to pay for the things we need.
Politicians like Tory refuse to raise taxes above the rate of inflation because it will be unpopular (despite us having extremely low property taxes which are out of synch with the rest of the region - I find it hard to believe that an extra $80 or so dollars a year is going to bankrupt those with $800,000 homes).
Tory will not raise fees for developers/business because that is unpopular with them - instead, he'll give them "incentives" to do things for the public good themselves(tax breaks, that is - trickle, trickle down).
Tory refuses to use or implement the hard fought for revenue tools that the province gave the city (the VRT or LTT for example)... and, refuses to fight for more tools - like road tolls or a regional sales tax (this is how a lot of American cities get by).
What is left in the Tory tool belt? Cuts, cuts and more cuts (and some creative accounting - like borrowing from ourselves).
All of this to stay popular with the base and be a proper "conservative".
A Ford in sheeps clothing if you ask me (though, a sober and not embarrassingly idiotic sheep at least).
 
cgwalnut said:
Ha! That's a good one!
Tory is basically only known for his inability to make tough choices or stake a position in order to stay popular.
This city is underfunded and underserved by the higher governments and that isn't about to change. So, we have taxes, fees and "revenue tools" in our tool belt to pay for the things we need.
Politicians like Tory refuse to raise taxes above the rate of inflation because it will be unpopular (despite us having extremely low property taxes which are out of synch with the rest of the region - I find it hard to believe that an extra $80 or so dollars a year is going to bankrupt those with $800,000 homes).
Tory will not raise fees for developers/business because that is unpopular with them - instead, he'll give them "incentives" to do things for the public good themselves(tax breaks, that is - trickle, trickle down).
Tory refuses to use or implement the hard fought for revenue tools that the province gave the city (the VRT or LTT for example)... and, refuses to fight for more tools - like road tolls or a regional sales tax (this is how a lot of American cities get by).
What is left in the Tory tool belt? Cuts, cuts and more cuts (and some creative accounting - like borrowing from ourselves).
All of this to stay popular with the base and be a proper "conservative".
A Ford in sheeps clothing if you ask me (though, a sober and not embarrassingly idiotic sheep at least).
Click to expand...

I agree with you, you want to pay your bills you have to find the revenue, not find "efficiencies".
 
cgwalnut said:
Ha! That's a good one!
Tory is basically only known for his inability to make tough choices or stake a position in order to stay popular.
This city is underfunded and underserved by the higher governments and that isn't about to change. So, we have taxes, fees and "revenue tools" in our tool belt to pay for the things we need.
Politicians like Tory refuse to raise taxes above the rate of inflation because it will be unpopular (despite us having extremely low property taxes which are out of synch with the rest of the region - I find it hard to believe that an extra $80 or so dollars a year is going to bankrupt those with $800,000 homes).
Tory will not raise fees for developers/business because that is unpopular with them - instead, he'll give them "incentives" to do things for the public good themselves(tax breaks, that is - trickle, trickle down).
Tory refuses to use or implement the hard fought for revenue tools that the province gave the city (the VRT or LTT for example)... and, refuses to fight for more tools - like road tolls or a regional sales tax (this is how a lot of American cities get by).
What is left in the Tory tool belt? Cuts, cuts and more cuts (and some creative accounting - like borrowing from ourselves).
All of this to stay popular with the base and be a proper "conservative".
A Ford in sheeps clothing if you ask me (though, a sober and not embarrassingly idiotic sheep at least).
Click to expand...
Wow, you have all the answers. Guess you should have tried to run
 
JWBF said:
I agree with you, you want to pay your bills you have to find the revenue, not find "efficiencies".
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Really, and what do you think private companies do when they cannot raise their prices? They try to find efficiencies and reduce costs
 
Palma said:
Really, and what do you think private companies do when they cannot raise their prices? They try to find efficiencies and reduce costs
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Do they also take out a loan just to plug a little hole in the operating budget for one year, only to revisit it again next year plus pay interest on top of it?
 
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Palma said:
Really, and what do you think private companies do when they cannot raise their prices? They try to find efficiencies and reduce costs
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One, Toronto is not a private company, and two, residents of Toronto are not customers. We have already seen this failed form of governance from the Fords, and voted them out.

Actually, the Fords' felt thy were entitled to welfare from other levels of government, and businesses.
 
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JWBF said:
One, Toronto is not a private company, and two, residents of Toronto are not customers. We have already seen this failed form of governance from the Fords, and voted them out.
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That's a bit of a leap. In reality, a sufficient number of voters felt that Tory's approach was more appealing than that of the Fords. Toronto residents pay taxes to the city government, and expect services in return. Value for money is always important. Do you leave the lights on all day? Do you turn down the thermostat when you aren't home? To assume that a municipal government is always running at maximum efficiency seems pretty foolish. The natural inclination of a bureaucracy is to grow over time, and nobody voluntarily admits that their job is unnecessary.
 
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DarnDirtyApe said:
That's a bit of a leap. In reality, a sufficient number of voters felt that Tory's approach was more appealing than that of the Fords. Toronto residents pay taxes to the city government, and expect services in return. Value for money is always important. Do you leave the lights on all day? Do you turn down the thermostat when you aren't home? To assume that a municipal government is always running at maximum efficiency seems pretty foolish. The natural inclination of a bureaucracy is to grow over time, and nobody voluntarily admits that their job is unnecessary.
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There's no leap at all, just a step towards sanity; being penny wise and pound foolish puts a greater burden on future resources.

I make no assumptions that any government can run at maximum efficiency at all, but then again that depends on you respective point of view.
 
JWBF said:
I agree with you, you want to pay your bills you have to find the revenue, not find "efficiencies".
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. In order for me to pay my bills on time and pay off my debt, I have had to curtail my usual free-spending ways to the point where I've stopped drinking alcohol, eat out only twice a month, and switched to travel by TTC rather than GO, among other things. I had to curtail spending, not try and find a higher-paying job (for which I would have to go back for years of school).
While the semantic game around the term "efficiencies" rather bothers me (like, wtf does "efficiencies" even mean?), I very much disagree with the idea of having to find increases in revenue *IF* unnecessary spending has not been curtailed.
Obviously, cutting services is not the curtailment of unnecessary spending--rather it's the curtailment of necessary spending--but knowing bureaucracy, I'm sure there's more than enough that can be sorted out for at least some savings. Sort out the waste and then ask me to chip in even more (which I will gladly do, as I gladly do now)....or at least be in the process of sorting out the waste whilst asking me to chip in more. You know, a show of good faith.
 
Anyone who goes on about how private business is a model of efficiency because the suits know how to turn down a thermostat must have been in a coma in 2008. And not now paying attention to how our capitalist betters are probably at this moment ramping up some disastrous excess.

I'm a cheap bastard. There are always ways that a buck can be trimmed ($7 haircuts in Chinatown!). But I wish governments would first look for efficiencies as a way of delivering more and better service to the public rather than whittling away the public sphere until it's failing to serve us at all.
 
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