The Tea Party movement that began in the United States in 2009 boils down to one thing.
Trust.
For example - after working hard and bringing home a paycheck that has ultimately been taxed perhaps as much as a half - who do you trust to spend that money?
You or the government?
Let's put it another way: Do you think that if you gave your money to someone else - say some backroom bureaucrat whom you could never identify and who never saw a dollar they couldn't find a program for - do you honestly think they would spend it better than you?
That's the essence of the Tea Party movement - letting the wage-earners keep and spend what they earned.
Responsible people are not saying there is an absence of need for government.
Does government really have to tax upwards of half of everyone's income? Because between the payroll deductions, federal taxes, provincial taxes, HST, hidden taxes, property taxes and education taxes that is pretty much what's happening.
Well, you may ask, without government spending wouldn't so many programs disappear that residents would literally be thrown in the street and wouldn't our roads crumble before our eyes?
Really?
So... if I don't give a dollar to my government - it disappears? I can't simply give it to an existing company, group or organization or right to the person or service that I want? Let's be serious - precisely same money still exists and it would simply bypass the government middle-man, who naturally takes a cut.
We might even have more actual services and less bureaucrats - imagine that!
So why am I making this argument now?
Because we are shortly into new budget deliberations here in Clarington and we are likely to see many, many services clamouring for a bigger piece of the pie and probably countered by some unimaginative ways to simply provide the same services for a few pennies less while largely missing the boat for substantive changes.
It's unlikely you'll see Claringtonians protesting for or against changes in large numbers - we just don't seem to do that - but most of us know that a loonie's best home is in the pocket of the one that earned it.
Next blog I'll take a look at public accountibility - do we expect our politicians to be working or playing on their time off?
