Reader Dave left the following comment about the recent post on Tax Freedom Day:
Instead of a tax freedom day, think about a govermental [sic] services free day. It wouldn’t be much different for a lot of people. The banks would be closed. The markets would be closed. The police and fire operations wouldn’t show up unless they were manned with volunteers.
Why is it in our discussions about taxes, people pay no attention to what they get for their tax dollars?
It would be counter-productive to argue that we should pay no taxes. Most of us fully realise that our tax dollars help pay for our police, our military, our schools, our first-class universities, our hospitals, our highways and countless other services that only the government can provide in an equitable manner. Our tax dollars also help our less-fortunate citizens and even the poor and distressed in foreign countries.
We should also realise that governments tend to be wasteful more often than not (Remember the HRDC boondoggle, the gun registry and the current sponsorship scandal?) and efficient government is an oxymoron. All I am saying is people should estimate their total tax burden and judge for themselves if they are receiving good value for their tax dollars.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jul 5, 2005 at 2:06 am
Uh yeah, lets let the government waste 100’s of millions of dollars so that very nice men in Africa can send their children to very nice schools in Switzerland and have nice estates built for them by gratefull Canadian Taxpayers. How about we not. How about instead we say clean up your act or die. Then we can have Kofi
Annan arrest such nice people such as R Mugabe who as all Canaidans know was democratically elected as the President(top thief) of Zimbabwe. Or how about the President of Nigeria who stole 6 billion dollars. Or what about the President of ??? whose country pumps 300,000 barrels of oil a day and he is so concerned about putting that money to good use that he puts most of it into a nice bank account in Riggs Bank USA in his name until as President he has a chance to figure out where to spend it.
This guy is a prize idiot with no or little understanding how the world works. Laws enforced and commonly accepted will help Africa. Giving money to the governments of Africa will only perpetuate a new generation of thieves.
Has no one ever thought of the correlation between lots of Aid to certain countries that then have a nice civil war for the lottery that would would be theirs when the winners get their chance at the pot of gold
2 taxedtodeath // Jul 5, 2005 at 2:11 am
Sorry I put it together to quickly I meant to delete the 2nd paragraph as it was rude and impolite. People get the government that they vote for. Sometimes they get a little more than they bargained for as witness the Lyin King Mcguinty.
3 Jose Anes // Jul 5, 2005 at 12:58 pm
My only issue about government spending is spending it on social help for those that don’t want to work.
I believe most reasonable people know that (at leas in the USA) there are a lot of people in Welfare, Section 8, and Public assistance that could be working or working more to pay for their own living, but don’t.
I believe that if we are more strict in giving public assistance we can reduce taxes in the USA by about 20%.
That is what I want the government to do.
Putting lazy people to work will increase our GDP and our strength as a nation.
Money and Investing
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