I have to pay more and I don't mind.
What the Liberals have set out in the budget is a full term plan to fix the errors of the Tory inability to keep the hand out of the cookie jar. It's a real shame that folks bought their idea of "spend but no tax" economics (perhaps the weirdest form of the trickledown wackiness experiment, VISA card budgeting) but there you go - the Brylcrem set is gone and we have to pick up the pieces. As a result, we get a health premium added on to the paycheck deductions. By directing those moneys directly to expanded health care, they will be tracable. Also, money is freed up for rubber-hits-the-road service areas like municipal spending. We also have gotten higher electricity prices which were, again, falsely capped by the supposed marketeers of the past. By leaving utility cost Neverland, we now see we get more than half of the deficit back and hopefully funds to increase the grid's infrastructure. You know, we are already discussing at the office what we are going to do during this year's August blackout. The larder will definintely be a little better stocked just in case. Fun for a few years but it would be better to have an electricity system where parts of the grid did not go on fire to support 20º C air conditioning in shopping malls.
So, between just these two economic decisions, I may spend 80 bucks more a month. I could probably have afforded more and those with smaller paychecks but bigger electricity draw may spend more. What I do like is the directness of it all. No obfuscation behind it. Pay as you go, buy what you need. Support for real public services.
Comments
zedada - May 19, 2004 12:33 pm
I agree with regards to electricity but believe that the health care premiums need to be more in line with people's incomes (as opposed to 0.5 % for those with higher salaries and 1.5% for those with lower salaries).
ALan - May 19, 2004 12:44 pm
I read today that is is even taxable income rather than gross income so there are levels of deduction making yet to unfold as to what we may each pay. But isn't it a radical idea? Not fee for service, which punishes the sick, but actually a dedicated tax to pay for what people over and over say they want to receive and pay for.
SayNay? - May 23, 2004 9:00 pm
Were but anything you have said comes to pass, in the same way as the McGuinty Liberal election promises. "Expanded health care" - ha! - kinda like the quys who buy the hams for $1, ship them all the way to Toronto and sell them for a $1 and can't figure out why they're not making any money - as a solution they buy a bigger truck. See how you feel in four years after pouring money into building a bigger health care truck. No real reforms, just more money - your money out of your pocket. Makes me want to go to the doctor once, maybe twice, a month, just to "chat". I like the idea of pay as you go, but no "tax you to death AND pay as you go". Blame it all on the past - the easy way out - and break all your promises. Does alot for "curing" political cynicism.
SayNay? - May 26, 2004 2:16 pm
Now we get to listen to the Natural Governing Party talk about pumping another $15 billion into to health care to reduce the waiting lists - lists that their cuts caused, but they don't talk about that. It's clear their pollsters now tell these "waits" are Trudeaupians main concern in this election. Promises, promises - If I had a nickel...
How support for our "Universal One Tier Health Care System" has become such a focus of our national pysche and how "rebuilding" it, or "improving" it has become such an untouchable "value" ("We are not Americans, look at what we value: Health Care" - as opposed to, say, freedom of choice) of our Trudeaupian society, shows how completely we have succumbed to this Liberal propoganda bullsh*t. Reminds me of the animals building the "Windmill" in Animal Farm - its not meant to work or ever be "completed" - its the "building" and "rebuilding" of it that has greater "value" to the NGP and its supports - the need to work harder, to invest more money, to show our "commitment" to social justice.