BC Conservatives promise $3K housing rebate
BC Conservatives promise $3K housing rebate
Conservative leader John Rustad is unveiling his party’s plan to address a key issue for the majority of voters in this election: affordability.
The title is a bit misleading and makes it sound like it's a one time payment. It's very different, he's promising to exempt up to $3000 a month towards your housing costs from income taxes. Starting at $1500 a month in 2026 and going up $500 a year for 3 more years. At the max, it would be a $36,000 a year tax deduction which is absolutely massive, that's half of the average family income.
Great idea? It's complicated, but probably not a good idea.
When you make something "cheaper" for everyone like this in a supply constrained market, all that does is drive up the prices of rents and housing sale prices since people can now use that freed up money to pay more for those.
Also, his plan to pay for this multi-billion dollar plan is:
“Obviously, we need to take a look at this reckless spending that David Eby has put in place in terms of how to sort of rein in some of that spending,” said Rustad.
So that's not really "fiscally conservative" at all.
Housing rebates are fucking stupid. You take a condo, let's say it sold for 635k before the rebate - the sale price is now 638k... housing rebates are a wealth transfer from our tax dollars to those rich enough to currently own houses.
Thanks for the breakdown - rebates get thrown around as helping the little man all the time and it's fucking bullshit.
that is conservatives favourite tactic: rebates and checks while they bleed the social support services. then rebates fall under "frivolous spending that's ought to stop" and unsuspecting public ends up with no rebates and no social support system. works miracles, ask Albertans. UCP was set to lose and then... just before elections they've sprinkled some cheques here and there and... lo-and-behold: they've won ( going back to their shenanigans immediately after taking office ). TLDR; those things comimg from politicians are trojan horses, from comservative politicians - doubly so. System needs fixing to not stink rather than gifting everybody a gallon of Febreze...