Apparently, in Australia, it's not enough that religion has all those ducky tax exemptions:
World Youth Day to cost taxpayers $86m
Posted Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:10am AEST
The New South Wales Government has revealed that World Youth Day events in Sydney will cost taxpayers $86 million.
Government World Youth Day spokeswoman Kristina Keneally says the money will be used to pay for additional police officers, extra public transport, and to turn schools into dormitories.
Not surprisingly, a few people are a bit hacked off about this grotesque Catholic Church swindle of the taxpayers:
The New South Wales Greens say the Catholic Church should be billed for the services the State Government is providing for the event.
"The Catholic Church is the organisation that will gain the biggest benefit from this event, not the people of New South Wales," Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said.
"It's a clear promotional event and therefore they should be footing the main part of the bill.
"The $86 million for accommodation and transport is a huge amount of money and means the economic benefit we were promised is now being whittled away."
Which probably explains the annoyance:
9 comments:
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, no... another day, another monitor splattered with coffee.
I wonder about this, though. I mean, sure, it sucks that taxpayers are being expected to foot the bill to help the Catholic Church host an event, but if it's decided the event's organizers should pay for that instead, what does that mean for other public events? I'm a Torontonian, so I don't really know what city-wide celebrations they tend to have in Sydney, but I hate to think of events equivalent to Pride, Carribana, or the Jazz Festival suddenly being expected to foot the bill for all the public services they use, just because some asshole homophobes, racists, or music-haters manage to convince a judge that these events might not be in the general public interest, you know?
I think a fair chunk of these events pay their own way, though. And I'm basing that statement based on the hoops Caribana has had to jump through in order to maintain solvency. One of the reasons it moved to Lakeshore Boulevard was because it was a means of getting money from attendees. The parade was losing money hand over fist going down University Avenue.
And, of course, more than a few people have noted that Caribana's financial woes are hardly fair given the millions the parade has brought to the city from tourists. It's quite a big draw, and that has provided a number of arguments for government support. So I would have to ask, has the economic benefit of an infusion of 300,000 Catholic tourists been included in the equations?
James:
It's worth noting that examining the overall "economic benefit" is precisely the argument that Canada's batshit-crazy, morals-obsessed wanks rejected when it came to discussing Bill C-10.
When one pointed out that, in many cases, the tax credits given to a film might be more than offset by the eventual profits and by the jobs created by that film and revenue put back into government coffers, said wankers turned into cretinous dumbshits and began howling about how that didn't matter, and a film should be able to stand and fall on its own merits, and if it was any good, it should make a profit and be self-sustaining, etc, etc, fume, drool, sputter.
Now, however, when it comes to World Youth Day, I'm guessing those same hysterical blockheads are suddenly getting all nuancy and asking us to look at the big picture, and so on and so on.
Do I really need to continue, or do you see my point?
But is it necessarily the same blockheads, though?
Yeah, I'm sure there are bloggers out there who are going to take both positions, and they should be mocked. But I would wager that if you brought up Charles McVety's name in Australia, you'd get a big blank look, or somebody saying "who?" He really doesn't speak for more than just his small group of sycophants.
Someone should warn Australia to be careful of Catholic crap:
http://tinyurl.com/6fcjog
I do know that New York City funds the police and security for events as diverse as the Pope's visit, the New York City bike race, Puerto Rican Pride, Gay Pride, etc. The out-of-pocket costs those events pay are for other costs. I am pretty sure NYC doesn't pay for transport or accomodation, though.
$86mil seems like a lot.
Does the $86 million cover the costs of the lions?
Maybe they could dress dingos as lions as a cost cutting measure.
Post a Comment