Why the liberals business tax increases are pointless.

Taxes?

There are times when raising taxes are necessary to pay for what citizens want. In 1917, the government of Canada started taxing income to help pay for the war effort. Although this was meant to be a temporary measure (but continues to this day), nobody would argue that this was an unnecessary tax at the time.

Flash forward to the present day. We are now faced with a government that has decided to raise business taxes for the first time since 1994, when the last liberal government was running the show.

Why Complain?

So why do I bother to complain? I want good health care. I was safe roads. I want a good education. I understand and accept that taxes pay for off of these. But, at what point does raising taxes stop paying for what I, as a citizen, want? This occurs when the money raised by raising taxes is spent immediately for something I don’t want. This is what has occurred in the case of Caisse de Shippagan. This is a credit union that failed horribly at running its business.

The Details

• Raising business taxes will raise $52 million dollars. (Raising personal tax will raise another $50 million dollars.)
• The province will give $41 million dollars to Caisse de Shippagan. (Saint John harbour cleanup was only $27 million dollars.)

Does this make you scratch your head? Why should every company in the province pay higher taxes? What do they get in return? The money simple goes to another company that is incapable of running itself. Shawn Graham, welcome to the real world. If you can’t run a business, then it goes out of business. Sorry, I’m no economics professor, but I think that’s fairly easy to understand.

Canadian Taxpayer Federation

John Williamson (of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation) recently made some very good points:

“I’d want to know why taxes are going up to pay for bailouts, as opposed to having governments spend money in priority areas.

“Governing is all about making choices and prioritizing spending. In this case, we have a government which has obviously decided that saving a credit union is worthwhile, despite the fact that no one from the province seems able to explain why it’s in the province’s interest, or why it’s in the taxpayer’s interest, to be spending this kind of money.”

Is it just me, or does he make complete sense? How is this so hard to understand? I’m glad people are standing up to question pointless spending of our money!

If you care, do something!

Taxes should be raised to pay for things that citizens in the province want, not to bail out a failed company. If this bothers you, email you MLA, email the premier, tell them you don’t find this acceptable. Next election, get out and vote for someone else, as this waste will continue until we change things!