By the People, Adjacent to The People, At the People...

Sometime in the 1980s, in the US of A, it became not only a popular idea, but very close to dogma that governments need to be run "like a business". Since Canadians are independent thinkers we did not follow this course.....until a bit later in the 1980s. "Taxation" became a dirty word and raising taxes became as acceptable as B.O.

We have taxes for a reason - we need things done by governments such as defense, water, roads, education and (In Canadian provinces not named "Alberta") health care. Taxes are not wonderful things - if you wished to pick a single reason the Roman Empire isn't there any more, taxation could easily be that reason.

So we play a game when governments switch to the right and then to the left and then the centre and then the.....

The "tight is right" rightests slash taxes, and of course, Ontario under Harrissment is the obvious example, services have to be cut. Then taxes, evil, evil taxes, must be cut so far that a large deficit is run (see: Bush's America; again: Harris and Eves in Ontario).

Then, when the centre or left get in they have to raise taxes to a level higher than before the cuts just to get back to the pre-cut era, or call them something other than a tax. (Witness McGuity's health care "premium").

Can't we follow a more European model and stress not how much we pay in taxes - but more that we worry about what we are getting for our tax dollars?

In this sense, at least, "like a business" can be a good thing.

TF