Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Let the Good Times Roll



Let the Party Continue!

There is a party is for the benefit of Canada's public service and the taxpayer is invited. Maybe I should say the taxpayer is mandated to attend and buy tickets.

An article this week in the National Post shows how Ottawa Overstimulates the Civil Service.
So who benefited most from Ottawa’s billions in stimulus spending over the past two years?
Indeed, the biggest winners likely have been public-sector workers, not surprisingly. In just the last year, public service employment rose across the country by 3.4%, half or more of the increase the result of jobs created to hand out stimulus cash.
So while there is scant evidence that all the billions spent stimulated many private-sector jobs – the original purpose of the money – there is plenty of evidence it created lots of new jobs in government overseeing the non-jobs being created in the public sector. Governments aren’t much good at creating employment, except for more government workers.
It takes roughly four government employees to do the work of three private-sector ones. That, in a nutshell, is why it costs more to hire government workers and why a burgeoning public sector is a burden on taxpayers, particularly now when taxpayers can’t afford the extra strain
Public Debt Exploding  
The cost of the party is becoming very expensive. As government revenues fall the costs of growing the public sector with gold-plated pensions and benefits soars! There are no taxes coming in so the money is borrowed for future generations to pay off. We call it public debt. 

As the National Post said these giant public pension funds and unions are “wealth confiscated bygovernment…using money taxed from all their constituents.” And why not – all government employees AND elected politicians will be the beneficiaries at our expense.

The Canadian Finance Minister released his expectations for the next three years in Canada. Basically it is a nightmare, a real disaster for taxpayers. But the goodies continue to flow for the public sector party! 
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation also reacted negatively to the update, urging Ottawa to cut spending in order to balance the budget sooner.
Even by Ottawa's accounting, the government will add $171 billion -- or $10,277 per taxpayer -- to the national debt before the books are back in black, the group calculated.
"A family of four tax-filers will have to pay off almost $41,000 due to this spending binge," said Kevin Gaudet of the anti-tax group.
We saw in the past three years that government had to bail out banks and financial institutions that over extended themselves in bad credit. At least the governments were there to bailout the banks and financial institutions when the party got out of hand. 

But who will bail out the governments? 

We are all in it Together
It would be nice to think that in times like this all Canadian would pull together to get the country out of the mess it is in. Something like the times of hardship in the 1930's that had all Canadian pull together to create the country we have today. 

Unfortunately it is every man for himself today. The public sector employees and politicians have made sure that they have set aside enough money to fund themselves into the Golden Years. 

The public sector has set aside $800 Billion to fund their retirements. This is more than the total value of the 
$ 275 Billion Canada has in the country's infrastructure. The $1 Trillion in debt Canadian governments have accumulated has not gone towards building roads, airports, waterways, hospitals or schools, things that would benefit all Canadians. 

Canada's debt has gone into the retirement pots of the Protected Classes. (Schwarzenneger's term)

Injury to Insult
You would think that the  public sector might look at our situation and say "we need to help out". However, this will not happen and Canada's pension system is on a crash course to destruction.

In Fredericton one politician tried to make a very simple and very moderate change. Of course his idea was beaten and ridiculed into defeat by a very vocal union membership. Fredericton council backs off pension reform

These public sector defined benefit plans are a Ponzi Scheme on their way to collapse. You would think that the unions would be prepared to give the taxpayers a little bit of a break. But instead they are determined to break the taxpayers! 

My editorial letter was printed in the newspaper about this issue.  See - Let's look at the numbers

Bill Tufts 
Fair Pensions For All

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