My wallet is lighter, pennies at a time
The provincial government announced their budget this afternoon. As I like to call it, the prediction of pain. A voice, with a litany.
- This will only hurt a little bit
- This won’t hurt you as much as it hurts me
- This is good for what ails you
Thankfully, a budget is a booklet of promises that won’t be kept. Similar to an election platform; in some cases, exactly that. Not this time around, because the party has what pundits call a “safe majority”. There will be nobody willing to quit, or cross the floor (or much of anything else).
As a public servant, I’m totally at their mercy. My salary is fixed, by governmental decree. Every penny predicted. So what if (over the next few years) I will pay a higher rate of sales tax, face increased tuition fees for my children, have to dig into the wallet for any time I use the health system (that I already fund through my tax load). So what if a whole new set of user fees are proposed. So what if there are higher prices for fuel (which has that trickle down effect beloved by certain economic philosophies).
You see, that’s the fun thing about a budget from the government. The intentions won’t be respected, but I’ll suffer the “thousand cuts” technique of keeping my spending in line. Too much money? Not a chance; I’m Canadian.
The only detail that made this budget interesting was that it was leaked (allegedly) by a local radio station host, via the modern 140 character bulletin mode of Twitter. No need for a radio station when you have a cheap cellphone.
