Today,
John Rustad (BC Liberal MLA for Nechako Lakes) asked the following question on his
Facebook page, “Is June 11th acceptable as tax freedom day?”
It’s
a good question and, as of mid-morning, it has elicited a number of responses;
here are two that I thought had some time put in to them:
What would the tax free day look like if we
included a real debt repayment plan? Are we spending too much or taxing too
little? Both answers require us to remember when we demand something from
government. We all have to pay for it. If you fail to repair a road, the repair
still needs to be made or you need to shut down the road.
Gentle reminder...Canada does NOT have free health
care or free K-12 education. We all pay for it. And we pay a lot for it. The
question is whether or not we get good value out of our health care system for
what we put in? I'm not smart enough to know the answer to that question, but
if Canadians are going to have a real discussion about how to pay for health
care, we need to eliminate the misnomer of a "free" health care
system from our culture.
Here
is what I contributed to the conversation:
Tax freedom day should be whenever we have
provided government, with the financial resources they need, to carefully and
planfully provide the services we "need" not “would like” to
have.
Government must have the desire and fortitude to
carefully ensure that we have the minimum numbers in bureaucracy and staff
needed … that the services provided are really needed, and not an overlap of
other government levels … that pay scales and benefits are no more than what is
provided in the private sector.
