Canadians are spending more and more on government. In fact, we are spending more on government than we do on our families!
The Fraser Institute produced a new research study that shows the average family brought in $77,381 in 2013, paying out 41.8 per cent of that in total tax, and 36.1 per cent on life’s necessities such as food, clothes and housing. Compare that to 1961, when the numbers were $5,000, 33.5 per cent and 56.5 per cent, respectively. Check out this video: Families spend more on taxes than food, clothing and shelter combined.
Charles Lammam, resident scholar in economic policy at the Fraser Institute comments, “Over the past five decades, the total tax bill grew much faster than the cost of basic necessities, so now taxes eat up more income than any other single family expense.
“With more money going to the government, families have less to spend on things they care about, to save for education and retirement, and to pay down household debt.”
In releasing the Fraser Institute report, Lammam observes: “While there’s no doubt that taxes help fund important government services, the real issue is the amount of taxes that governments take compared to what we get in return. With almost 42 per cent of income going to taxes, Canadians should ask whether they get the best value for their tax dollars.”
And this is exactly the inquiry picked up by Sun columnist Lorne Gunter who questions the absurd reasoning of entitled politicians, unaccountable bureaucrats and champions of big government spending. Gunter writes in his column “Tax to death”:
“Governments have too much money brought on by nearly unlimited taxing and borrowing power. This almost-limitless stream of cash (coupled with too much faith in the infinite goodness of government) has created a mentality among politicians and public-sector workers that they are doing the work of angels and thus are entitled to gold-plated pay, perks and pensions.”
Gunter points out that today public-sector workers (civil servants as well as teachers, nurses, police officers and others) have higher pay than their private-sector counterparts, plus richer pensions, shorter workdays, better benefits and greater job security.
“Whereas the average family used to spend much more on the basics than on taxes, today it spends way more on taxes. Canadians work far harder to feed, clothe and house public-sector workers than they do to feed, clothe and house their families. There is something horribly distorted about that.”
Hear, hear! It is high time that Canadians begin to curb the gross appetites of big government. The interesting questions to ponder in light of this Fraser Institute report are:
When it comes to taxes in Canada, just what are the limits?
At what point will individuals begin to react and do more than grumble to their accountants?
