all of the media surrounding the gst rebate increase states that your rebate will be doubled. it's just a constant statement, without much elaboration.

what i received was about $100 less than that, so it seemed like some idiot at the call center (and, i've worked in call centers - these people are fucking morons) pressed the wrong button. it happens. fine.

after multiple calls, i finally got through to somebody by refusing to enter my sin number.

the agent on the phone had a very difficult time explaining something that was very simple - she kept trying to tell me it had to do with extra amounts added as a consequence of children, which made absolutely no sense because i didn't have any children when it was counted up the first time, so the fact that i don't have any children now shouldn't affect a doubling of it.

so, i forced her to direct me to the actual web page, where it became clear that what she was trying to tell me was completely wrong. the right answer is that it's not the rebate that's doubled, it's the base amount - which, in my case, was the $290 that i received.

if i was dumb enough to have bred at some point before now, i would have had a higher base amount due to the number of state-supported children i'd be dragging around with me, most of whom would probably at least have fas, because about the only way i'd have managed to breed after aggressively pushing for an abortion is if the mother was such a fucking drunk that she barely noticed she was pregnant in the first place.

but, that wasn't the conceptual problem - it really had nothing to do with that.

it's really just some intentionally misleading advertising from the government. they double the base amount and keep the income constant, which works out to getting a check for the base amount, which is determined by the number of children you have, rather than your income.

i've been clear that i thoroughly reject any concept of "progressivism" as being fully synonymous with the conservative right. but, this government just continues to demonstrate how intellectually and conceptually bankrupt it really is - it's happy to throw the term around, but it seems eager to throw away literal progressive income support in favour of conservative rhetoric about family values at every opportunity that it gets; focusing on family size instead of income is in truth a deeply regressive approach.