I hate it when the government bribes us.

In July the BC provincial government and the Ontario provincial government are adding a new tax - the HST - that will increase the rate we pay on lots of stuff.

In Ontario, the government is sending everyone a cheque for a $1000. (I think. That's what I heard, anyway.)

A couple years ago the BC government did something similar with the carbon tax.

This is such an obvious ploy to buy-off the voters. If the government truly wanted to help us save money on the tax, lower the tax rate. Or give a 60 day grace period. Or, best yet, don't even bring in new taxes.

Why spend all that money sending money back to the people who had to send money to the government in the first place?

Who's going to pay for the oil spill?

British Petroleum (BP) is getting a lot of heat for the latest environmental disaster. Twenty-five thousand barrels of oil are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, every day.

I haven't been following the story very well. I did hear that President Obama said, "BP is responsible for this leak and will be paying the bill."

Really?? BP is going to pay the bill. Don't mind my skepticism, but did the wall street banks pay the bill for their shady business practices, which brought down the economy?

No, of course not. The taxpayer paid the bill.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that BP will not be paying the whole cleanup bill. Sure, they'll pay a little. Not all of it though.

Obama said, "We're going to do everything in our power to protect our natural resources, compensate those who have been harmed, rebuild what has been damaged and help this region persevere like it has done so many times before."

US taxpayers better hold on to their wallets.

The middle class does all the work.

The comedian George Carlin once said that the rich people make all the money, the middle class does all the work and pays all the taxes, and the poor people are there to scare the shit out of the middle class.

I'd have to agree. The middle class gets royally screwed - especially in America (also in Canada to a somewhat lesser extent.) Let's take a look.

• The middle class was told to invest all their savings and money in the markets - mutual funds, stocks, mortgages, credit etc. They paid a ton of hidden fees to the rich corporations who pay their executives millions dollars of year.
• The system collapses because the middle class finally has their back broken by debt.
• The government then takes the money the middle class pays for taxes and gives it to the rich corporations who continue to pay their executives millions dollars of year as a "bail out".
• In other words, the rich people made money on the way up and made money on the way down.

Should I bailout failing local tv stations?

I guess local broadcasters like CTV, Global and CBC, have been asking the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission to tax cable and satellite customers for receiving over-the-air television stations.

In other words, they're losing money because no one watches their crappy shows and they want the government to take my money and give it to them.

My thoughts are: there's a reason you're losing money. It's because there is no demand for your programming. People don't want to watch your shows. So you should fail or change. You shouldn't ask the government for a bailout.

Why? Because I don't want the government deciding what I should be watching on TV and taking my money to finance shows that no one watches.

Local is not always better. In fact, local is very often inferior. That's why we have free trade. It's why we're able to buy better quality, cheaper products elsewhere. Same goes with television and movies and radio and entertainment.

Why "surveys" on websites and radio stations are useless.

I've seen so many surveys in local newspaper, websites or radio shows that ask questions like, "Do you think the government should build another sky train line?"

Or "Do you think we should have cameras on the HOV lane to catch cheaters?"

Duh. Of course everyone's going to say yes to these kinds of questions. Who wouldn't want better transit and punishment for cheating drivers?

The problem is that the questions never mention the consequence. Namely, money. It costs money to do the above things and that means you pay through your taxes.

I think the questions should have the following added to the end: "...if you had to send a cheque for $200 right now to cover the cost?"

In fact, I think any person (usually left, wing liberal) who says something like, "I think we should have more [blank] so that [the world will be a better place]" should be asked if they're willing to write a cheque then and there.

I'm going to try that from now on. Except I'm thinking it might come off as obnoxious. Ah, so what!