It’s admirable but ...

A person close to me heard Jack Layton on the 6 o'clock news Sunday evening, where he was talking about all the wonderful things he planned to do when the NDP was elected government in Canada.

“It's admirable he'd like to do that” this person said, but wasn't it France that just had riots when they had to increase the retirement age because they could afford paying pensions at such an early age?”

“Yes” I replied, “and other countries around the world have been having no end of grief, and near financial meltdown, because others have had to prop them up when their treasuries were facing bankruptcy.”

Most of us can list off at least several of them such as Greece and Portugal – but there have been many others.

Why have they got to this place? Well it's so simple that it seems impossible to have actually happened – but the bottom line is spending far outstripped their ability to pay back international banks and countries that loaned them money. 

They gave away today, what they could not afford to pay back tomorrow.

That leads me back to Jack Layton's campaign promises for this federal election ... and his promises to spend vast quantities of money while miraculously not increasing the debt.

How does he plan to do that? For one thing he plans to cancel the fighter jet contract. Of course he acknowledges we need planes, but the problem is he has no idea what he'll buy instead, or from where.

The question then has to be asked; how can he then say his choice will cost less? I suppose we could buy a few old fighter jets from some 3^rd world country. They surely can't or won't be any older than the Sea Kings.

Oh yes the Sea King helicopters! Now there's another political football that’s been kicked from pillar to post by the political parties; instead of being left to people who are able to make a decision based on actual needs and requirements.

And what’s another of Jack Layton's brilliant ideas? Why it's corporate taxes of course. Business – the big boogeyman that creates jobs -- isn't paying enough says Jack and the NDP. When will the NDP figure out that every time taxes for business are increased, they just get passed down the line to us anyways. That's the way business works – don't they get it?

Of course they do – but it still LOOKS better to say they are paying more in taxes – they'll just turn a blind eye to the costs of goods that will rise to meet that tax increase.

And Jack, just in case you weren't aware, most people have their retirement investments in the very company’s you are calling crooks for not paying enough in taxes --- big bad corporate business. If those companies don't make a profit, we won’t have enough to retire on when we quit working.

In simple terms even you should be able to understand Jack... life, business, employment, and retirement all co-exist together. Mess with any of them on their own, and something has to make up for it for it down the line. Business doesn't exist on it's own in a vacuum, our lives don't exist on their own in a vacuum, nor does the workplace.

Nothing I have heard from the NDP, or the Liberals for that matter, makes any sense to me when I hear their campaign promises. They offer more, but no increase in taxes, debt, or deficit. Is there some Imperial to Metric math conversion I'm unaware of that creates something from nothing.

Personally I think I'll stick with the Conservatives. What they are promising may be a few years down the road, but they acknowledge the debt and deficit need to be in order first, before we spend any more money.

Now that's something that is admirable – don't you think? I'm Alan Forseth in Kamloops, and those are the thoughts of one conservative.