I think so but a friend of mine in Vancouver certainly doesn’t. Here’s the public conversation between us. His words are in regular type-face whereas mine are in italics:
Contrast [what is happening in France] with what is happening in the US where a President once asked: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” J. F. Kennedy, 1961; A country that is the most generous in the world, can’t seem to get citizens who are more than capable, to shoulder more than its share of taxes for the good of their own country, except when asking its young to die at war.
So, if I understand you correctly, if my government, who already wastes oodles of our tax dollars, asks for even more then I’m unpatriotic if I say “Hell No!” ???
What about a government that strives to keep the rate of growth down to that below the inflation in the private sector?!?
The issue is not about condoning waste or efficiency, nor about patriotism. The issue is the willingness to give of ourselves more or not. With blessings and power comes responsibility – how we exercise it, is the issue. In terms of taxes, the top earners got reduced tax rates, which were to expire – the discussion is about the willingness of those who can, to pay more or not. In contrast, in the name of patriotism, the country has no problem in asking young people to die on their behalf at war (regardless of its value) but have excruciating difficulty asking those who can pay, to pay a little more. I find this quite odd.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
The conversation continues below but I’m posting this here to see what others on SDA would say to him. Please strive to be polite!
This notion of small is beautiful and belief that eliminating waste can somehow solve the current US fiscal challenges is a romantic fantasy. Firstly, ‘small’ is relative. Surely, a government the size of Wasilla, Alaska can’t run the biggest economy, the largest military and social security budget on this planet. What % efficiency gains will be enough to reduce overall expense in a meaningful way that will reduce the deficit substantially? Revising the tax code and achieving efficiency is s a must but such efficiency initiatives taken to the extremes, ala the Borg (Startrek), means individual freedoms must also be curtailed as uniformity is the key to efficiency gains. This also means rules and regulations. For example, take choices in medical care options – compare uniform Universal care like Canada’s or get what you want if you can afford it system like the US.
Efficiency (eliminating waste), small government (can the country just get rid of the Defense Dept to make the government smaller?) is simplistic and ignores the biggest issue of all – the Demand for Services, whether it be military, social security or medicare (the biggest components of the budget and government) is growing and will continue to grow, given changes in demographics, population increase and citizens demand for societal services. While achieving efficiency help, any savings through efficiency gains are no match for the inherently growing Demand for Services. Unless this Demand for Services is curtailed, growth in revenues achieved through economic growth or through increased taxes will be required and government cannot become small nor the total taxes/budget be reduced. Here is a Bloomberg Businessweek article that point to this very issue.
But, really, the post/issue was about comparative differences in the attitudes of wealthy in France versus the American wealthy (or those who think they represent the wealthy American citizens). Did you know, in some countries, like South Korea, housewives voluntarily donated their gold jewelries to their government to help it mitigate the Asian currency crisis (1997)? I still find it odd – that a wealthy nation can ask its young people to die for their country but it can’t ask the rich who can pay more, to pay more taxes to help its country out of debt.
I vehemently disagree with your views. This “discussion” is reminiscent of several conversations I’ve had with American friends of mine who are hard-core Democrats. I understand that they/you believe that rich people are selfish, possibly evil, and not paying their fair share. I’m not rich but I absolutely disagree with this notion. That said, if people are escaping paying their share of taxes via loopholes then those loopholes should be closed.
But the idea that everyone is supposed to agree to live in a big government nation governing a socialist society is simply nonsense. Let me be clear, I respect the fact that YOU think this is a good idea. Please give me the same courtesy and allow me to share a contrary view without calling me selfish, greedy, stupid, or unpatriotic. Note: I’m not saying that you used any of these words but during the recent U.S. Debt Ceiling crisis this is PRECISELY what your like minded ilk south of the border said about Republicans and Tea Party members.
Incidentally, do you acknowledge that your views, as implemented in Britain, are the root cause of what caused the recent riots? Janet Daley of the Telegraph thinks so.
How much is enough? Does it end in confiscation?
I have a simple method for canada, no taxes on the first 40,000. Then afterwards, 23% tax on all dollars above 40,001.00. No cap gains taxation, no dividend taxation. Then a national HST of 17%, and no more equalization payments to any province, no other government buy outs to other provinces. Now most provinces hit the fed rate at 50%, so the total provincial and fed tax rate would be 34.5 % and then go and spend. No more rrsps, no more tfsa, no more loopholes, you will have to massage the business losses section, but I think it can be done. Then everyone has skin in the fight. Oh and on a one time basis, everyone is allowed to clean out their rrsp’s without taxation. Then it is spend spend spend and make the economy steamy!
Make that 10% for both rates add income splitting and I am in.
What has BONO done?
and only those earning $40,001+ get to vote.
Read the Declaration of Independence and get back to me on that, will you? I do not live to serve the government – I’ve already done that for my $128.50 a month and received the grateful thanks of my countrymen. I’ve got the letter, somewhere.
Read the Constitution. English is your native language, so I’m sure you can plainly see the part where anything could potentially be interstate commerce, so the government can do and control everything it wishes for my good.
Sit down, shut up and pay up, right?
Don’t you have some rioters to prosecute before you worry about my country?
I’ve a simple solution to curtail the “Demand for Services” problem… stop lying to people and telling them that said Services are free. Stop lying to people and convincing them that said Services are “essential”. Stop lying to people by financing social programs through debt, and telling them that this is somehow sustainable. Private enterprises can finance through debt, because they expect their company to grow (that’s still the goal, right?). Government’s shouldn’t be trying to grow in any way other than population growth, and tax increases through increased employment and incomes.
He sounds like yet another idiot who can’t perform basic arithmetic.
Tell him I said he can write them a check if he wants, but I think we need to REDUCE the size of government and the best way to do that is to get their fingers out of my pocket. I ain’t paying a nickle they don’t pry out of me at gun point.
Oh, and his argument is crap incidentally. In a free country “efficiency” is not a public policy issue. Freedom is messy and chaotic, whereas “efficient” centrally planned economies are tidily disastrous.
I haven’t seen the numbers for Canada, and StatsCan’s site is, well, designed by bureaucrats, so finding the information there is not easy. But I’ve already posted the figures in other threads here for the US. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3.7% of the taxes. The top 5% pay a whopping 38%.
Let’s put that in perspective: there are 10 times as many people in the bottom 50% than there are in the top 5%. The top 5% pay 10 times more in taxes than the bottom 50. Therefore, on average, each person in the top 5 pays 100 TIMES as much tax as each person in the bottom 50.
Now let’s compare this to wage inequality. I’ve seen indignant articles on the left complaining that CEO’s back in the 50’s only made 10-12 times what the average employee made, and now they make 100 times as much. This is a horrible state of affairs, according to the authors, and something must be done!
I find it amusing that an income ratio of 100:1 is appalling to the left, but a tax ratio of 100:1 is nowhere near enough.
‘course, they never were much good at arithmetic, were they?
The question is not about what % of taxation is *enough*, or who can give more There will always be so called reasons to justify taking from one to give to another.
In the end, the question is whether individuals will control their resources, their lives, or their resources will be controlled by others. i.e. the government, bueaucracy, a theocracy, the majority, or David fing Suzuki.
And really, don’t look at wealth as a static pie. Wealth must be produced, and continually so. What system encourages production?
The argument over tax level is backward. Taxes are levied to pay for government services. First you must decide, if you want lower taxes, what government services you are prepared to dispense with.
The problem we have been having over the past number of years is that the voters have been demanding services from government for which they were not willing to pay. This has been done in two forms: by piling up government debt, and by transferring tax load to others.
And that’s the hard part. It’s easy to say, “lower taxes”. It’s much more difficult to say “drop this program”. Just ask the military. They get into trouble every time they try to close redundant bases.
Write a cheque then. No one is stopping them from paying extra on the debt.
There is nothing to say. What you have to realize, is that “the rich must pay” is to a leftist, as the Nicene Creed is to a practicing Catholic.
You are arguing about religion, and when was the last time you ever actually convinced someone to convert?
“the country has no problem”
Actually, the country has a lot of problems asking people to die; it’s an excruciating decision and politicians pay for misusing it. Taxing, on the other hand, is seen as their right and they resent even explaining it. And there is no end to it – government just gets bigger and bigger, and it has absolutely no concern about spending.
I feel anyone who avails themselves of federal services should be paying some form of federal tax no matter what the amount. It doesn’t have to be much, but the symbolism is such that everyone has skin in the game.
I’d have no problem shelling out more for our young men and women in our armed forces when needed, but can the same level of importance be given to any other branch of our respective gov’ts?
We have to look at what we really want gov’ts to do and what’s required to have a civil society
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MzQwMTM0ZmIwNzQxMzQ3YWIxZTBjMmFmOTQ5MjIyNmM=
Give me back the money I pay and have paid in taxes so I can afford to send my loved ones to the USA for proper medical treatment. The taxes I pay are going towards a shoddy, inept, incompetent hospital system. Any additional taxes you pay will go to the pockets of the bureacrats running the system. It never ends up where it belongs, patient care. So go ahead, throw away your money, idiot.
Hong Kong became the most business-friendly economy in the world partly because of its tax regime. With no resources other than its people and their strong sense of self-reliance, Hong Kong became an economic powerhouse. With a basic personal deduction and a flat tax beyond that – no convoluted regulations, no differentiation between types of earned income and no progressive tax rate, Hong Kong now struggles with the influx of fellow Chinese trying to enter the Special Economic Zone. But it’s not in the best interests of our bureaucrats who would be out of a job to attempt any such reform here. They laughed when Preston Manning suggested the flat tax years ago. Would that they had listened…
Dan Tappin, I am with you. 10% flat tax on all income (from all sources). That could be the corporate tax rate as well. Eliminate the concept of tax credit and deductions completely. Half goes to provincial and half goes to federal.
I would entrench this in the constitution and call it the “Rule of the tenth” whereby citizens can stop remitting taxes to the government when they can show they’ve paid a tenth of their income to taxes (and by this I mean any taxes – sales, income).
Government can invent as many new taxes as it wants, sales taxes, liquor taxes, carbon taxes, value added taxes, land transfer taxes, etc., etc., and make them as high as they want. But as soon as I can show that I have paid my tenth, I would be off the hook.
The rate would be set in the constitution so it would be stable, which businesses and individuals could rely on. And future governments (I’m looking at the Democrats and/or Liberal/NDP here) would need a constitutional amendment to change it.
And my way would allow for the elimination of 98% of Revenue Canada staff and it wouldn’t even require you to submit a tax return. The government could do the processing all by itself (after we show them the “move the decimal point one digit to the left” trick that is).
U.S. data from the Wall Street Journal:
In 2007, 390,000 tax filers reported adjusted gross income of $1 million or more and paid $309 billion in taxes. In 2009, there were only 237,000 such filers, a decline of 39%. Almost four of 10 millionaires vanished in two years, and the total taxes they paid in 2009 declined to $178 billion, a drop of 42%.
Those with $10 million or more in reported income fell to 8,274 from 18,394 in 2007, a 55% drop. As a result, their tax payments tanked by 51%. These disappearing millionaires go a long way toward explaining why federal tax revenues have sunk to 15% of GDP in recent years. The loss of millionaires accounts for at least $130 billion of the higher federal budget deficit in 2009…
The millionaires who are left still pay a mountain of tax. Those who make $1 million accounted for about 0.2% of all tax returns but paid 20.4% of income taxes in 2009. Those with adjusted gross income above $200,000 a year were just under 3% of tax filers but paid 50.1% of the $866 billion in total personal income taxes. This means the top 3% paid more than the bottom 97%. Yet the 3% are the people that President Obama claims don’t pay their fair share. Before the recession, the $200,000 income group paid 54.5% of the income tax.
cgh, I disagree that voters or citizens demand more services from governments. Politicians, as we see in Ontario’s election, present programs to Ontarians they never even conceived of. The population is now conditioned to demand these additional or enhanced programs and the politicians like McGuinty will gladly implement them as they expand the Liberal base of bureaucracy and those dependent on continuing the gravy train.
Witness the continuing attacks on Harris/Hudak in this election as he is threatening to reduce or eliminate programs, this horrible man. And the $64 dollar question, what happens when the “rich” are fully tapped out?
Remember the video from Whittle where he calculated that if you fully cleaned out the Gates and Buffetts’, sold everything the rich had, their houses, cars, investments, everything, it would last the US Federal government 9 days and 23 hours with their unceasing spending!
So what if a grand total of 16 wealthy limousine liberals ask to be taxed more? I’m pretty sure you could find many more who disagree. In any case, what’s stopping these dolts from writing a cheque voluntarily? Have they not heard of leading by example? I’m tired of their “do as I say, not as I do” attitude.
As far as tweaking tax rates go, that won’t even come close to getting Western economies out of the mess they are in. Entitlement programs are coming to an end, folks. The welfare state is done like dinner; the only question is whether it will end in a bout of mass bankruptcies or massive inflation.
The U.S. figures happen to be handy because there debate is topical.
Obama wants to increase taxes on those earning over $200,000. There are roughly 3 million of these folks out of roughly 100 million taxpayers.
But, as shown above, these 3 million “high rollers” are already paying more total tax dollars than the 97 million people earning below $200k.
What is also notable about the advocate of increased taxes is the manner in which he/she treats spending programs and demand for such programs as irrevocable metaphysical entities, kind of like rain or snow, rather than the political creations that they are. Any political creation can be undone as surely as it was instituted; all it takes is the will to do so.
Ask him this:
is there a level of taxation that you would consider excessive? If so, what would that be? At what point would you consider taxation to be theft?
And given the fact that taxing the rich at 100 % wouldn’t come close to covering the current US deficit, what alternatives are there to balancing the budget?
And isn’t inflating the currency a form of theft? (stealing from those who have cash in their pocket) Isn’t running up large deficits a form of theft? (stealing from future taxpayers)
Conservatism is grounded in reality. You can’t get something from nothing. There is no free lunch. The second law of thermodynamics can’t be overcome. Socialism is wishful thinking. They dream of a society without pain, but they don’t realize that’s impossible.
In attempting to create heaven on earth, they instead create hell.
I still find it odd – that a wealthy nation can ask its young people to die for their country but it can’t ask the rich who can pay more, to pay more taxes to help its country out of debt.
Your friend is innumerate. “Paying a little more” won’t get the US out of its deficit, let alone make inroads into its debt. Not even taxing A LOT more will do the trick, witness France’s ever-ballooning debt-to-GDP ratio despite their wonderfully-confiscatory tax regime.
And on the other side of the coin, every dime you tax reduces the nation’s GDP growth rate, as individuals have less capital to invest in new businesses, or expand existing ones. Thus you shrink the future pie of wealth the government can tax, if that’s what’s important to you, and hurt the overall wealth and standard of living of society to boot. For “fairness”, or something.
What services should we be paying for? That should determine what taxes anyone pays and how much. I want the roads to work. I don’t need to pay for state-funded mouthpieces.
Just my quick thoughts.
The wealthy already pay more taxes then anyone else, this concept of “their share” is nothing more then folks looking to dump the problem they created onto anyone other then themselves.
I keep hearing the left trumpet this little tidbit that 10% of the population controls 90% of the wealth, well if that is even remotely correct then even if they are parking money is tax shelters and doing all they can to avoid taxes, you would have to assume that those 10% are at least paying 70% of all taxes collected if they have 90% of the wealth.
We have a very small segment of the population actually pay enough in taxes to offset the services and programs they consume, yet we have somehow convinced ourselves that this small segment isn’t paying its fair share?
That aside;
If the government was providing core programs and items that should be within the governments responsibility and their was a budget shortfall then by all means have a discussion about raising taxes.
However, as long as we are shelling out billions on items that are frivolous, owning and operating a media empire springs to mind…
Then before you look toward your citizens to pay for your spending, look internally to make sure you are spending responsibility.
If the Government got its house in order and needed a short term revenue bump, I would accept it.
However with billions of fat to be trimmed that isn’t because it effects someones “electability” we are a long way off from that “order” I seek,
I recall the yell a few years past when the tories did away with the death duties. The lefties screamed about unfair taxation while in reality the tax cost more to administer than it collected. No matter tothe lefties….they abjected to SOME-ONE ELSE getting an inheritance.
The left went to great lengths to prove that the death taxes resulted in revenue…
But they didn’t reinstitute tham when they later had an opportunity.
One of my best days was when John Kerry got caught regisyering his yacht in another state to avoid Massachewsett’s onerous tax on such vessels.
Before that Rosy O’Donnell found applying for a carrying permit for HER kid’s full time bodyguard…after all her on air anti-gun BS….such as her rude, outright attack on Tom Selnick for doing an NRA commercial.
Dave, the fact remains that a level of taxation cannot be set without deciding what expenses to trim. You are avoiding this question.
As for politicians, yes, some of them are scoundrels seeking to spend your money for you. But you need to understand the intense lobbying by hundreds of organizations coming at them all the time, every day.
pkuster, I agree with you about everyone having to pay at least some tax. But here’s the question, does sales tax qualify? Because on that basis, everyone pays now. It’s not sufficient to look at just income tax; you have to look at the total tax burden.
How aboput a flat tax rate of say 14% across the board ,
Absolutly no loopholes susss those out and close them , allow income splitting, no capital gains taxes , And absolutly no taxes on taxes across the board if your paying an hst tax that’s it not an hst tax,a gas tax ,a gas guzzlingtax so on and so forth eliminate that garbage , get rid of welfair except in a one by one basis that is backed up by fact’s manditory blood and urine test’s before the check get’s handed out , keep a pubic health care system but allow provinces to expirenment with a private as well , a specific amout of the federal budget goes directly to the military for the development and protection of our boarders all FOUR of them . Set a date as to when our boarders will be closed and close them period for a few decades unanimously no excuses refugees will be sent back to there home country or sent to another that will accept them at the cost to there own country . Encourage all married heterosexual male and female canadians to have more than three children and give incentives for that based on the amount of children they have,Revisit nafta , charge huge tarrif’s on all imported goods to encourage job creation in canada , any foreign buisness that opens in canada must have at least a 60% canadian to foriegn worker rate. lol for now that’s all i got. but there is alot more.
PRIVATISE CANADA POST
AND PRIVATISE THE CBC!!!
eliminate all forgein aid , but put up a web site for canadians to donate to any number of current legitamate charities around the world and in canada.
On the main post:
Neither Canada nor the US “ask” soldiers to die for their country via compulsion these days; they’re all volunteers.
So, yeah, the State asks people – and they’re free to say “no” with no negative consequence.
Indeed, in the US, as far as I know everyone currently serving has re-enlisted during the war, since it’s been going on for a decade now.
“Asking” people to “contribute” more money via taxes is much more like conscription than volunteering, it turns out.
Because, you see, they don’t have a choice, and someone with a gun will come take it by force if they refuse.
Taxes are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the State, and the State is by far the lesser evil over Anarchy, so it’s necessary (indeed, I’d say it’s inevitable, too).
(I’m more with Hayek than Rothbard, by far, and have no objections to the “social safety net” as an entity – though its extent and comfortability are other matters.)
But I don’t pretend they’re taxation is not extraction backed by force, and it’d be nice if other people didn’t either.
(I don’t see Warren Buffet writing a check to the Treasury, so he can shove it if he wants to talk about “giving”.
Giving is voluntary.
And taking other people’s wealth to do “good” with it is not charity, either.)
You want to pay more? Knock yourself out, you Patriot you. I certainly won’t try and stop you, you have the right to decide what to do with your own property.
If only I could be sure a a reciprocal attitude.
Me, I like to keep what I EARNED, rather than have it legally stolen by my government in order to support the worthless mass of slackers, hypocrites and outright communists that are the Democratic “base”.
You like ’em? You pay ’em.
Even if you could tax the wealthy in America enough to cover the deficit it would not be enough.
Politicians especially the Democrats are like my ex wife. Who went from a modest income of $2200 a month where she was paying all her bills and adding no debt. To – her income jumped to $6000 a month, she was then offered and accepted credit cards with $50,000 limits. She not only then spent her $6000 a month but added huge credit card debt. We were divorced and later her income dropped back down to the $2200 a month and her father paid off her credit card debts.
The more you give them the more they will spend and over spend.
I’m going to keep this simple. When did mandatory stupidity become law? The point appears to be that I must not question government spending or direction? Fat chance. Big governments (not all governments) spend money the same way big unions spend money. It is all about power and control. I personally don’t need government control over my life or decisions. Therefore I make it a point to always and only support governments that spend my tax dollars wisely and ask for only what they need. If they go so far as to represent the wishes of the majority of the population, they will have my unrelenting support.
Sigivald makes great points, I vote his response the winner of the thread.
Taxation is, for most people, consensual theft. More people in advanced liberal democracies receive more in benefits than what they pay for in taxes, hence the pressure for the successful to pay more and naturally receive less. This works until the payers change their lifestyles and incomes to keep more of their own property. Most of what governments are involved in are illegitimate functions. Once you legitimize activities like a state-run social safety net it democratically grows into leviathan.
The rich are paying too many taxes and the poor not enough. A fairly large segment now pay little or no tax and thus demand ever more services. The best for the country would be a flat tax with no deductions and no tax credits. Simple, fair and little room to avoid paying. This should be combined with substantial reductions in government programs and spending. We are a typical family of 4 and the 3 levels of government presently spend twice as much on my behalf as I spend on myself.
The most important word in this discussion appears only once in this entire post, in the comments:
“you have the right to decide what to do with your own property”
We do not, this precious right has been ignored, and without the unassailable right to retain your hard earned property, (such as the 1/2 of my income I pay to all and various taxes) this legal plundering will continue.
The flat tax is a good idea, so that _everyone_ contributes to the core functions of government and no workable solution will exclude cutting back on non-core services.
Most of you are still evading the issue. Please define what Dana Arnason describes as “non-core services”.
I’ll give you all a big hint. Here’s the list of national departments and agencies.
http://www.canada.gc.ca/depts/major/depind-eng.html
Unless you are prepared to say where you’re going to snip and how much it will save, on a NET basis, then it’s just a lot of sniveling.
Sigivald wins.
There is a word or a phrase to describe the type of argument that attempts to link 2 unrelated ideas. I don’t recall what that is and perhaps someone might enlighten me. To mention military service and patriotic duty (asking people to die…etc.) and contrast that with the unwillingness to ask people to pay more tax is one of those twisty types of arguments. It’s similar to the “if we can send men to the moon why can’t we…” argument. Or…use an incandescent light bulb and kill a polar bear. What does one have to do with the other except to attempt to inject one of those unanswerable statements in the discussion. Just stick to the basic question: should people, particularly those designated as rich, be asked to pay more tax. Forget the part about “in order to lift the country out of debt” as if the “country” is a wayward but lovable relative.
When you strip the question down, the answer to me, is obvious. No. The government (not the country) is capable of absorbing no end of resources from the public it’s supposed to serve. Pay only for essentials and cut back on the rest. If that makes the country stall out, it’s obvious that too many rely on the largesse of the government to survive, and these need to become productive and find another source of income.
Sorry, Robert, but, your friend is a soft headed doofus if he’s not an actual agent for socialist totalitarianism.
I didn’t need to read beyond his second paragraph way up at the top of your conversation. “With blessings and power comes responsibility …”. Really. Unless born with a siver spoon or the winner of the 6-49, the “blessings” of most wealthy people came right after they spent years of busting their a$$ to build something which almost always provided economic opportunities for others. And, unless they have some sort of debilitating condition (drug addict doesn’t count), everyone of age has responsibility for his economic status and should be working to sustain and grow it.
I’m not certain, but, I’d suggest that top earners in the USA got tax reductions because even with them, I think KevinB’s numbers way up above tell us that the top 5% of incomes pay 38% of USA federal taxes.
Now, having not read the entire post, Robert, it is entirely feasible that you were able to convince your friend of the error of his thinking in which case he is not a doofus and I apologize to him.
Arrgh – posted what I thought was a great idea but it was eaten by the spam filter and really have no idea what I said to trigger the spam filter.
I think the question is misleading. It should ask if each tax bracket as a whole is paying their fair share. In a graduated tax system, the more you earn the more you pay. I paid three times the average New Brunswick income in income taxes alone. That was before the miniciple taxes came off. Then on what I was allowed to keep for myself after income tax I was taxed again every time I spent what I had left over at 15%.
I recon I contributed well over 60% of my earnings in taxes of some sort, and that is almost 4 times the average New Brunsick income. I think I pay enough. In addition to that I draw very little back and am not a heavy user of government services or largesse.
I have always found it wrong that the lower the income the less you contribute, but the more tax money you get, more benefits and more entiltlements.
I am a big supporter of a flat tax and user fees for government services.
This tax the rich nonsense cannot continue. Soon however I will retire and this will end as I move into the income range of the average New Brunswicker and then the government will have to soak someone else as I have no incentive to work to mainatin my current income.
I define “non-core services” as pulp, peel and stem services…
Rita: “Pay only for essentials…”
Fine. Please define essential services.
If this were anything more than just talking, I would make more of an effort (cgh: Fine. Please define essential services.) Instead I looked at the list of government services you linked to. Looking just at the section under C, I picked out the CBC, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (why do we need two of these oppressive agencies?). How about the Canada Chile Agreement on Environmental Co-operation?
If you scan the list, you will see numerous instances where something is listed several times: Check out the Virtual Museum of Canada and see it again under Canadian Heritage Information Network. This is only one example.
Bureaucracy is a self-serving organism–it will continue to replicate and grow unless limits are imposed upon it. The only effective limit is money. As long as taxes can be coerced from the population, these entities will grow with no net benefit to anyone except the people who are paid to perform unwanted, unneeded and often obstructive tasks.