Government Has Discovered The Organic ATM Machine.- We're Screwed!

I stumbled over an interesting tidbit yesterday. The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report that shows the federal government is now raking in some $10 billion in user fees. It was a striking number that made me ask a simple question. 

For what?

Aren’t government user fees sort of the same things as having your own employees charge you for using the facilities and services for which you already paid and own? Where’s that money gone for Pete’s sake? It’s like having your kids charge you for the hug you want to give them and thought the new iPhones you bought them last week had earned you.

It was mildly annoying but I thought I’d let it go because I’m feeling pretty magnanimous this week and decided to cut the government a break but…..I couldn’t let it go and ended up doing a little research.

Guess what?

User fees have become a major windfall for governments at all levels. In fact, the combined amount of user fees charged by all levels of government in Canada is more than $60 billion. I will repeat that for you, my fellow gentle, organic ATM machines. Our governments are charging us $60 billion to use the services and facilities we paid for out of our tax money.

Municipal governments charge user fees to use ‘our’ sports facilities even though we paid to have them built and pay the salaries of those who operate them. They charge for permits that they require us to have and that’s an excellent racket if I ever saw one. Make it mandatory to get a permit and then charge to supply it. Only two organizatons could come up with an idea like that; the government and the mob.

They even charge to park in our parking lot at City Hall when we go down to interact with our municipal government. I’m thinking of requiring them to come to my home where I can park for free the next time they want to interact with me.

Provincial governments also charge user fees for things like parking at hospitals and provincial offices and copies of our records like birth certificates. They charge user fees to use the parks we paid to build and pay to maintain. Many schools now charge users fees for extracurricular activities that were once free and for specialized courses like French, art and music. Imagine that; charging a user fee to learn one of Canada’s official languages in a school.

In Quebec, where I live, the government actually charges a $2.50 fee if you show up at the license bureau to pay your registration in person rather than mailing in a check. Unbelievable; a user fee for the privilege of paying another user fee in person. I'm thinking that next year, I'll bury the money for my registration in the front yard and sent them an email treasure map where to find it.

Government, of course, justifies this by telling us that we must pay these fees if we want to benefit from and continue to enjoy these services and facilities. I think, however, that what we need is some fresh blood in government because I tend to believe that government has lost its sense of perspective at best and its collective mind at worst.

Let’s back up just a bit. We agreed to pay income tax, property tax and school tax to provide certain fundamental common services. We’ve even, reluctantly at times, agreed to increases in those taxes to offset the rise in the cost of living. Government, for its part, took that money and spent it. To be fair, some of it was used for its intended purposes but much of it went to bloated bureaucracies, extravagant facilities we didn’t need or ask for and, of course, entitlements that are very handy things to offer at election time.

Government further compounded the situation by managing to find the most complex and expensive method of doing anything while at the same time reducing the pool of tax payers by handing out tax breaks to political parties, charities, non-profit foundations and unions which pay no tax at all on the membership income they take in and use to support their political campaigning and activism.

This meant that government didn’t have enough money to do everything it was supposed to do so it introduced other taxes including: consumption taxes like the GST and provincial sales taxes, health taxes, excise taxes and capital gains tax among others. Of course, once that money started to flow, government came up with new things to spend it on.

The bureaucracies grew, the entitlements expanded and public sector compensation packages became a thing of beauty.

More money was needed, so after raising the taxes on sin products like cigarettes and booze, the government took over the mob’s old rackets and got into the Numbers Game with lotteries of all shapes and sizes. Of course, that necessitated even more administration so some governments expanded again and opened up casinos. 

In Quebec, where I live, there is a lavish casino that makes about 10% profits. Imagine, a casino that only made a gross profit of 10%. How is that possible when you are the only casino in the region? It’s possible because government knows as much about running a casino as it does about managing health care services in an efficient manner.

Now governments are charging us user fees for the very things all that tax money paid for and continues to pay to maintain. Somehow, this makes sense to government but it doesn’t to me. They seem to believe that we are nothing but organic ATM machines and to be very blunt, I don't much like where they insert their debit cards in order to make withdrawal. 

I think we’ve reached a stage where we should just send all of our money to government and live for free. Government can buy our food, pay our mortgages, and give us weekly spending allowances to use for clothes, gifts and entertainment. We will pay for nothing. Government will pay for it all. When we need a new car, we’ll just call the car department of the government, give them the style and colour we want and they will send one right over.

It will be less expensive than what we’re living with now. At least we won’t need all those bureaucrats and tax departments who collect the taxes, user fees and other income now. Of course, now that I think of it I realize that they won’t actually get laid off. They’ll just get transferred to new departments in the bureaucracies so maybe that idea won’t work either.

Perhaps we should just bend over and kiss our asses goodbye or in the alternative bend over a little farther stick our heads up our asses until we can’t breathe and just suffocate ourselves to death so that we don’t have to live with this inanity any longer.

Of course, government will probably have a user fee for that too.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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