The news today is standard fare - a hockey game, a wedding far, far away, America the Beautiful struggling with gun laws vs. medical marijuana laws.
But one item stands out.
Don Cayo, writing in the Sun, informs us that the tax bill for the average Canadian family is now more than 41% of earned income.
41%
The taxes come from every direction and from every manner - some unimaginable - of thing.
And why is this?
I'll tell you why.
Because even though governments have a responsible and useful and important role in our lives, nobody (other than Trudeau, of course) ever said governments should be the primary engine of national life.
I believe that 50% or more of all working Canadians are now employed by one level or another of government.
That's a lot of paper pushing, a lot of desks, cell phones, BlackBerrys, fax machines, memo pads, lunches, conferences, and bull.
The reason that 41% of our earned incomes are now devoured by government machinery is because the machine itself is so big and so unproductive.
If there is anything that can humanly be done by two guys with a shovel or a microchip, government will find a way to employ 14 to do the same job. After the discussion, of course.
And yet...
And yet.
Are we not hot in the midst of some national voting event called an election?
Have you heard one single candidate of any stripe whatsoever mention for a nano-second PRODUCTIVITY, say, or BLOATED BUREAUCRACIES?
Would anyone dare suggest that half the tit-sucking mandarins in government employ go out into the real world and create something useful and contributory to the general weal?
No.
Because the "real world" is what exists.
It is you and I who live in a fantasy.