Federal and Provincial governments have been wasting tax payer money for years. It seems that it has just been in recent years that we the tax payer have awakened from our years of sleep and realized through revelations of Auditor Generals, the taxpayer federation, and the National Citizens Coalition and no doubt other organizations that our political master have been anything but upright in the handling of our money. The one thing that I find puzzling is how our governments can get away with the obvious abuse of taxpayer money virtually unscathed, the odd exception being some politicians resigning or retiring without being held accountable for their actions. This begs the question: are our politicians above and beyond the law? In some if not most cases it surely seems this way.

We in Nova Scotia are awaiting the Governor General’s report to see if he has found any of our “honourable” (I use this term loosely) politicians guilty of committing a crime. We already have one politician who has resigned as a MLA and has gone as far as hireing a lawyer after being called in for a talk with the Auditor General. From what I have read he did not appear before the Auditor General on the advice of his lawyer. My take from what I have read is that many Nova Scotians are fed up with our provincial politicians whether they be PC, Lib, or NDP. The problem is that all three parties have been involved in the abuse of taxpayer money so what party does one vote for in the next provincial election. I would imagine that all three parties are hoping that between now and the three and approximately half years before an election that the electorate will have forgotten the abuse. I know that I will not have forgotten and on my ballot I’ll write in “None of the Above”.

You have described a very common scam in government spending. The real scam is that every department is allocated funding on the basis of what they spent last year, and if they do not spend all their allocated budget it is cut by that amount. All this does is encourage waste. Years ago when I lived in Edmonton one of the high schools spent a lot of money on unneeded visual aid equipment at the end of the fiscal year in order to retain its budget. The equipment went into storage in the basement, but it had been spent.
This applies to every government department and I suspect has resulted in tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in waste. Every department should have to put forth and defend a new budget each year, and it should be mandatory that they cut the previous budget by not less than 1%.

Government greed is insatiable! Our B.C. Premier has imposed a carbon tax on fuel and furnace oil. And guess what, the federal government charges GST on it! When was a tax on a tax considered fair and reasonable?

Want to save 10-30 billion a year?

CBC - gone - sell to Fox news

Multiculturalism funding - gone or replace with Canadian study and assimilation funding

Human Rights industry funding - gone Redundant to the Charter and rule of law

Bilingualism funding - gone Because affirmative action hiring is gone

Private sector Arts funding - gone - better art existed before public subidization

Sports funding - gone - sport is just fine without nanny’s subsidy

Climate change funding- gone- we don’t set public policy on junk science.

UN NGO funding - gone - we don’t need to fund international communism which is focused at robbing and enslaving us.

Gratuitous non disaster relief Foreign aid - gone

Eliminate or trim back: CRTC, CHRC, CIDA, Heritage minisrty, FFC, CCA, CWB, CDC, IDRC …….

Another thing that will be happening if and when the government starts shrinking its size, is public servants taking training or getting promotions just before they retire, effectively bumping up their pensions and building up our long-term debt. And, once again, cheating the average taxpayer.

Years ago I worked in the Printing Industry and even then Governments (both Provincial and Federal) would place orders for books that would never be used and pay for them all before the Fiscal Year end. If the departments budget was all used up at the end of the year then they would receive the same budget the following year or would get a bit more even. This is wrong and should be stopped. Every purchase should have to be justified. If the budget has money left at the end of the fiscal year then the following years budget should only be topped up the amount that was used in the last year. This move alone would save millions of tax payers dollars.
The other practice that should be stopped is any Member of Parliment who was a lawyer previous to becoming a Member of Parliment, should have to pay their own Fees to keep up their Lawyers fees. This should not be placed on the Taxpayers. It was the individuals choice to run for Parliment and should have to pay for that themselves. That is a personal expense. This practice apparantly happens in all parties.

Memo to Budgeting, Ottawa Bureaucrats:

Please refrain from snacking on the inhabitants of the various hen-houses which you purport to be guarding.

I am in agreement with Margaret. This practice of buying all you can to eat up the budget is wrong. When this occurs, it gives the excuse to again budget high with no regard to taxpayers. Grassroots Conservatives have been appalled by this practice but what can a business do? Deny Government to spend money on their supplies? I say reduce taxes and have customers but things. Thats the way it should work.

A friend of mine has been selling furniture for years. He recounts how his biggest customer - agencies of the federal government - routinely and deliberately vandalize perfectly good furniture leading up to the end of every budget year. In a perfect world the heads of these departments would go to jail. But that would mean exposing them, a job the mainstream media is not interested in doing.

Msny years ago when Stephen Harper was part of the NCC, I predicted to myself that this fine young man would one day become Prime Minister. When he finally becomes leader of the Majority, I sincerely pray that he will strongly stand behind all those wise beliefs he then held. In particular, may he uphold FREEDOM - of opinion, of speech, of personal conviction. I am sure that in juggling his convictions with the socialist notions of the opposition, it is not always easy for him to cut the fat.

I agree with Bill says .we need to clean house in that den of theives called ottawa .The present Harper Gov’t is prevented from Governing by a bunch of Socialist public bloodsuckers.AmFyfe