3cp1
New Member
Let's get this straight. $50,000 dollars in 1950 is the equivalent of something like $450,000 today. Add to that all of the maintenance costs of keeping a house in good shape for more than 50 years (probably at least $250,000 in today's dollars), and the property taxes and you can see that granny hasn't gotten rich off of her house. She has merely kept up with inflation. Stocks, which rise on average 7% per year are actually a far better investment than real estate in most cases.
Now some areas may have increased at a rate slightly higher than inflation. Possibly Cabbagetown, Riverdale, the Beaches, and a few others. But I can think of plenty of areas in the city where the opposite may be true. There are still lots of areas downtown or very close to downtown where the average house price is $300,000. Lots of these areas have not been gentrified, some have even declined, and as a result, the housing prices have not appreciated much.
The real issue is that Miller promised many times to limit tax increases to the rate of inflation. The problem is that city unions have been able to negotiate wage increases far exceeding inflation. And now guess what? Tax increases are exceeding inflation by a wide margin. Property taxes have been rising at roughly twice the rate of inflation. And now that's not enough, Miller wants to introduce a land transfer tax, a gas tax, a car tax, a booze tax, and a sidewalk tax. Coincidence? I think not.
The city is right to demand an end to the Harris policy of downloading provincial services onto municipalities. But the Toronto Board of Trade is right to ask Miller to look at controlling costs, something he refuses to do. Instead, he accuses them of being irresponsible. Expecting Miller to stop catering to the unions is like expecting fish to stop swimming. And until the city gets city wages back in line with market rates, and starts contracting out, as well as opening up infrastructure projects to free market competition, the province can use it as an excuse not to upload.
Unfortunately, the province is also hesitant to upload because it doesn't have much money, and that has to do with the equalization system. Ontario is becoming a have not province, as its manufacturing sector dies, while sending billions to provinces like Quebec, which is now becoming a have province. But the Liberals haven't been effective at all in their half hearted campaign to remedy the situation.
I say get rid of Miller ASAP, freeze city wages until they are back in line with market wages, contract out city services, and open up infrastructure projects like the Bombardier subway contract to competitioin. Also, we need to elect a premier who is going to to be more effective at arguing Ontario's case, so that the province can actually afford to upload municipal services without raising taxes through the roof.
It's not that Torontonians aren't willing to pay tax. It's just that the taxes (when you factor in federal and provincial) are already so high and Torontonians receive so little in return. That's why there is so much public pressure on Miller to finally control spending and stop catering to the unions.
Here are just a few facts to mull over:
-On average, Toronto pays its workers around a third more than the province and a quarter more than the feds
-labour is the most expensive item in the city budget by far
-the City’s net budget is increasing by 9.3% this year, more than triple the current rate of inflation
-Over 2000 city workers make $100,000.000 or more
-A city-employed cashier makes $25.90 an hour, more than twice the wages of a cashier in the private sector
-litter-pickers - those guys with sticks who pick up garbage in the park - make $46,000 a year plus benefits
-Streetcar drivers (who don't even have to steer) earn $80,000 per year
-the City Manager's salary is as much as the Prime Minister's
-Toronto has hired 8,000 more civil servants in the past 4 years and now has over 60,000 bureaucrats to manage 2.5 million people. The city of Pittsburgh has ¼ of this amount on a per capita basis and is a much cleaner city
-TTC workers won the right not to have to pay the provincial health tax (retroactive to 2004) and now Toronto residents have to shoulder the added tax burden ($18 million and counting)
-under the city of Toronto's Fair Wage policy, any outside private firm bidding on a city contract must agree to pay its employees at 90% of the unions pay scale
-More than 40% of Toronto workers are in union shops. The average public sector union rate in the US is 12 %.
-Montreal (a city whose finances are in much better shape than Toronto) is looking at freezing city wages in 2007
-the city's debt and the costs of servicing it have been increasing dramatically under David Miller's rule
-In Toronto the private sector loses 9,000 jobs on average per year
I should add to this analysis:
Chances are, Granny paid a lot in interest to pay down the mortgage, so her real estate investment may not have even kept pace with inflation. Plus this little doozy:
The average city staff salary is more than $60,000 — plus annual benefits of $14,900, compared to the average city wide of just over $40,000! So city employees are making on average almost twice as much as an average Torontonian!