Probably has been posted before,...but I'm really pissed that a bunch of sucks screw this country over and over again,...
November 26, 2000
Liberals' socialism picks your pocket
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor
The most important issue in tomorrow's election is neither health care nor PM Jean Chretien's ethics. It's about whether Canada - so aptly described as "rich by nature; poor by government" - will: a) continue stumbling onward as a bloated federal state, with multiple layers of redundant government; or b) finally downsize its extraordinarily large, expensive and inept ruling establishment.
Liberals are the party of big government. Under their patron saint, Pierre Trudeau, the federal government went from consuming 30% of national income to 53%. When government devours more than half of a nation's economic output, government no longer serves taxpayers, taxpayers serve government.
Other countries call this socialism. In Canada, it's termed "justice and compassion."
The Liberal's little rump, the Tories, and the feebly Marxist NDP, favour the same big government, socialist policies promoted by Liberaldom and its megaphones, the CBC and the Toronto Star.
The Alliance, the target of intense hatred by Canada's mostly left-leaning journalists, advocates reducing the size and powers of federal government, giving provinces primary decision-making in education, health care and taxes. The Bloc Quebecois also supports this position and says the separatist movement will end once Canada decentralizes.
Decentralization would bring Canada closer to the exemplary model of Switzerland, a nation of four languages. There, each canton makes its own social and economic policies. The tiny federal government in Bern handles only defence, foreign affairs, central banking and railways.
TAX BURDEN
Seventy percent of your taxes on average - 70% - go to support the vast federal government in Ottawa. Provincial governments, which very ably conduct the real business of running Canada, get only a paltry 30%.
According to civics textbooks, a federal government's primary functions are: defence; foreign relations; managing the currency and central bank. Ottawa's performance grades:
* DEFENCE. Behind the charade of peacekeeping, Trudeau and his successors virtually disarmed once powerful Canada, making it a pathetic military eunuch. Canada's token combat ground forces have fewer men than the New York City Police Dept. Thanks to the Liberals, Canada has become a de facto American military protectorate. Grade: F.
* FOREIGN RELATIONS. A nation without military power and little cash to hand out has no international influence. Canada is known as NATO's "weak sister." Contrary to Ottawa's self-promoting puffery, Canada's foreign policies are widely ignored abroad or dismissed as platitudes. The one nation that matters to Canada, the U.S., which accounts for 50% of our national income and 86% of exports, has been goaded and enraged for decades by Ottawa's leftish foreign policy poobahs. Grade: D-.
* CURRENCY/CENTRAL BANK. Ottawa always takes credit for a good economy, but that's the result of the free market, not government. Where Ottawa exercises crucial control over the nation's currency its record is borderline criminal.
In three decades, the once mighty Canadian dollar has been stealthily degraded by Ottawa from US$1.06 to today's Trudeau dollar at a humiliating US64¢. Few people understand 40% of their assets have been stolen. A currency once the equal of the Swiss franc has become wampum.
Liberals finally managed to halt annual deficits, but have done nothing about the monster $576 billion federal debt. Servicing it consumes 25% of your taxes.
Foreign investment is Canada's lifeblood. But no one wants to invest in a shaky nation with a steadily sinking currency and crushing debt. Canada is thus denied vital long-term capital inflows, meaning the increasingly uncompetitive and inefficient economy will fall ever further behind the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Grade: F.
If the Liberals were running a real business, they'd have been fired long ago and sued to kingdom come for malfeasance. Canadians pay 25% more taxes than Americans, yet show little for it, except the Third World Trudeau dollar, huge debts and a doomed socialized health system. For a few hundred dollars monthly, Americans can buy health insurance that gives better medical service than in Canada.
So what does Ottawa actually do? The Feds are primarily a giant patronage scheme in which voters are gulled into clapping like trained seals when they receive "government benefits."
SHELL GAME
In this shell game, Ottawa taxes people $10, spends $8 on itself and buying votes from special interest groups (known as "income redistribution" and "fairness"), then hands back $2 to the grateful credulous. Many naive Canadians actually believe government creates wealth. Getting more from government than you put in, the free lunch, is the Canadian way. "Tax the rich" scream Ottawa's socialists - the rich being anyone who makes over $60,000.
Liberals long ago realized that if they could manage to directly or indirectly employ 51% of the work force, they would be assured re-election. Pro-Liberal Ontario, chock full of bureaucrats and government-pampered unionists, is exhibit A.
Dare reduce big government, warn its defenders, and society will revert to poverty and the Stone Age. Women are particularly susceptible to such disinformation.
If Canada downsized to a Swiss-sized federal government, cutting larded layers of redundant bureaucracy and double sets of politicians - the Alliance's plan for national liposuction - your federal taxes could be slashed by 55%. You won't need Ottawa to throw you crumbs called "benefits."
The only thing holding Canada back from growing up economically and becoming a modern, competitive nation is too much useless, expensive government. |
