Thank you so much!

That would totally mean something to us if we were working...lol

Those are just the taxes we pay as 'taxes'. But most of them are sums which are also 'costed' into the price of all the things we buy.

Just take Income Tax for example. What you get as a cheque, or now maybe deposited directly into your bank account, is your NET income, AFTER your Employer has deducted the tax. That's what you have to spend in acquiring the things you need and want.

But it's the GROSS amount of your pay, plus the Employer's contributions to CPP, EI, and WCB, etc., that flows through into prices. And has to be fully recovered by him through those prices if he's to stay in business. Small wonder that no matter how much we pay, overall "debt" (public, private, or both) just keeps on rising.

That is so depressing! I have to wonder...where does all this money go??? And why do all levels of Gov't complain about not having any money.

no one wants to pay taxes, but everyone wants better health care, better roads and better education.

more social safety net, more parks, better schools, a functioning military, police, fire protection. We all know where the money is going, we just want to complain. It would sound better though if we stuck to whether we think we are getting value for our money (or why not) rather than crying in our beer and wondering why we have to pay taxes!
I am wondering how far we are going to stretch this whole debt thing. We hear a lot about how personal debt is so high and it just keeps getting higher. I have not seen any actual figures showing that there is an actual problem. The ones i have seen were published to make an impact so they included mortgages in the mix. That being considered the figures were lower than i would have thought. Besides a person can own a lot of property and have a huge amount of mortgage debt. It doesnt necessarily mean they are broke. If the properties are providing revenue it might mean just the opposite.

Render unto Caesar that which is his. Remember?

That was Jesus that said that at his trial by the money lenders... and the rest of the quote went 'and render unto god what is his'. Jesus advocated a separation between religion and state for the sake of religion. Jesus understood the limits of the spiritual world as well as the power of the state to corrupt religion. That quote and the universality of a god for all people is the main difference between Christianity and all the other religions. Jesus said god wasn't for these people or those people, but for everyone... and yet governance of the state is for this world with the spiritual world (ie peoples personal values) being god's domain.

Whether or not Jesus supported taxes who knows?

"Whether or not Jesus supported taxes who knows"

And who really cares? It's not like we can even make a comparison between modern society (and the things that taxes pay for in our society) and the time of Jesus.

Heck, it's hard enough to make a legitimate comparison between the "value for taxes" between the average Canadian and the average American, let alone two completely different cultures seperated by thousands of years. Personally I think all levels of government should provide their citizens with a fairly detailed statement at the end of each year, showing them where their taxes go. It doesn't have to be crazy detailed, but even if it put the amounts in various groupings I think it would be worthwhile.

I'm sure that all of this info could be achieved by looking at the budgets and whatnot, but the average joe taxpayer isn't going to do that and they may not even understand it. I imagine many would be shocked to see just how how much some of our government programs cost, let alone the sheer volume of stuff that taxes pay for that we sometimes take for granted or aren't even aware of.

One of the problems we have concerning 'government' finances and the whole idea of a 'balanced budget' is that the accounting does not completely represent the reality.

"Figures" are supposed to completely REFLECT "facts". Not distort them. Or the continued belief in the accuracy of those "figures" is delusion.

All our current political parties say budgets should be balanced. I won't disagree, but what does this conception actually mean?

It can only really mean that the 'government' is collecting back from the public all the money it has spent on behalf of the public at exactly the same RATE.

In other words, over the fiscal period, a year, say, ALL government expenditure, including ALL the sums spent on 'capital projects' that are going to last for decades into the future, are going to be completely recovered and paid for from taxation in that very SAME year.

THAT is the meaning of a 'balanced budget' under the current financial system as it relates to 'government'.

Now politicians often tell us that the 'government' is just like a business. That it cannot spend more than it takes in, or it'll "go broke".

But let me ask you all this. What 'business' EVER recovers ALL its 'CAPITAL' EXPENDITURE in exactly the SAME fiscal period it's been disbursed in?

Ever hear of "depreciation"? It is a technique of accounting used by EVERY business that "expenses" Capital Expenditures against annual Revenues over the expected life of the productive Asset those expenditures have created.

Which may be, in the case of a business building, for instance, up to twenty years. If our 'government' is indeed "just like a business", then WHY, pray tell, does our 'government' not keep its books just like any other business?

With a proper National Balance Sheet showing Assets, Liabilities and Shareholder's, (in this case Citizen's, all of us) Equity.

It would be very interesting to most of us, I think, just what such a statement would reveal. That rather than our just 'owing' the government 'money' each year in taxes, (and we certainly must pay for the 'services' we get through 'government' that way, there's no denying that), the annual increase in Assets over Liabilities should result in our government paying each one of us a "dividend" on the "appreciation" of Capital our investment has created. Which, in all likelihood, would be more than what we pay the government in taxes. Since annual Capital "appreciation" has to exceed annual Capital "depreciation" or actual physical 'progress' is impossible. And physically, we are, I believe, still "going ahead" (though not nearly as much as we could , or should), as a nation overall.

This can always be made to be so, providing, of course, those we elect to government are managing well, and providing services to us progressively as efficiently as any other business would if it hoped to pay its 'shareholders' a return on their Capital.

Very true socredible. A balanced budget simply means that there has been a reconciliation of cash inflows and outflows. It's not a reflection of the economic performance of the government in that same period, which contemporary financial statements would likely do more effectively.

I should add that the contemporary financial statements may be more effective if the intent is to report on government operations as though they were a business.

This may or may not be desirebable, depending on what purpose people want from those statements (i.e. if people don't think of government as a business, then perhaps it would be a bad model to follow).

You could write text books on this stuff. Check that, text books have been written on this stuff, LOL :)

Most of the moneys go toward the next election. As soon as a gov't is elected ,the primary goal is to get re-elected. Money has to be spent in positive ways such as stacking the senate,hiring more bureaucrats for a multitude of reasons and advertising(mud slinging) the oppositions shortfalls. Bailing out large corporations is a new one this time around but has been done previously in different manners. Bombardier, Bingo gate, airbus all levels of Government practice it; even city hall.

Bingogate continues: A three week investigation by Public Eye shows 98 percent of the donations to the 2005 liberal party came in the form of contributions from industry-connected individuals or companies whose president is a current or former gaming facility owner/operator. And almost a quarter of the donations were recorded by the Liberals as being made on the same day - February 15, 2005

And a few of them have even been read :)

Really, to the extent that government operates outside of its traditional Legislative-Executive-Judicial functions, and has been deemed by us as the best means to deliver certain services, (and some goods, too), we could really lump it into the "Firms" sector of what is essentially a modern, three-sector economy.

That economy consists of "Firms", (the producers and providers of actual goods and services), "Banks", (the providers of specialized 'financial' services ~ or the 'money', in other words), and "Consumers", (all of us, because we all 'consume' goods and services in order to live, even though fewer and fewer of us might be engaged over time in actually 'producing' them).

Viewed from this perspective it would not be very difficult to set up National accounts which would encompass the whole, or 'macro-economy', including both government and private enterprises, along the same lines they are kept 'micro-economically' now in every business. The "figures" are quite likely already available in sufficiently accurate enough form for us to do just that.

What I believe the National Balance Sheet of such accounts would show, is that the "Liability" we call the National Debt is a miniscule, monetary figure when viewed in comparison to the entire "Assets" of the country.

And that the total difference between the "Assets" and the "Liabilities" is normally continually growing in favour of the "Assets", which should alternately represent accretions to "Capital account" from which citizen's "dividends" could be paid. As they would be in any similarly situated business.

To forestall any chance of 'inflation' from the payment of such "dividends" directly, any part of them necessary could be paid as Consumer "rebates" on the regular price of all retail purchases.

Socred, you are still trying to sell quantitative easing monetary policy... or in other words printing paper money inflating the monetary supply, and in essence taxing savers. I think you raise some good points, but you are evasive about what your real agenda is.

Debt even if minuscule compared to a nations assets (that obviously rise in monetary value when monetary policy is inflation oriented with quantitative easing)...even a miniscule ratio has a real world cost that has to be paid to 'investors' of that debt by tax payers directly... or indirectly via monetary inflation (the end run around current generation tax/spend accountability).

Your policy IMO is akin to a planned supernova of the nations finance ethics and thus credibility.

One just has to look at Britain where they are now printing money with no real world backing to pay for 65% of their government budget... thus deferring the real cost of government services to savers and future generations in the form of debt now and taxes to pay later. They are bankrupt and so will the US be by this time next year. Even the most powerful nation on earth will crash with a policy of quantitative easing, because in the case of the Americans you can't print $2 Trillion dollars of paper and not expect it to crash the dollar... it will happen mark my words... its why we are only in the early stage of this economic melt down... the globalist ponzi scheme is going bust and taking the world down with them.

Finance and markets can't be managed by perception as much as our central banks like to think and justify when they embark on dangerous policy that has a sole purpose of bailing out banksters and not securing the foundation of our economy. Quantitative easing is a fancy way to transfer wealth and nothing more.

IMO I differ from your point of view in that there is no surplus in society and everyone should be doing something of value to justify their expenses. If we have to many Chinese made tooth brushes, than the idle could be cutting lawns or providing other services (including volunteer work) that generate value to society. Everyone has a role to play IMO.

A national balance sheet would only be a tool to use for historical comparisons and not a policy making data source. A lot of things government are intrinsic to the specific function society requires without a real monetary value. Clear definition would be required to understand what was being counted, how it was being counted, why it was being counted, how it all related to potential policy. A global national balance sheet would be meaningless on its own IMO.

Your policy in effect is a policy that takes the individual sovereign and makes them a chattel of the state, a debt slave beger of handouts easily manipulated by fear of their future. When a person earns their living they are sovereign IMO, otherwise the individual is at best frauds and at worst slaves.

If you want a balance sheet that aids society in providing social justice and corporate accountability, then it is the corporate accounting of a balance sheet that needs reform. Why are employees not counted on a corporate balance sheet? Why are not employees viewed as assets with a cost for termination that has to be written off and find its way to the balance sheet in the term of amortization of training and experience of the employees... also reflected in tax law? It can easily be done as I have explained before years ago... funny thing is you will never see the so called 'socialist' parties advocate that because it isn't worth the capital of their special interest elites.

Time Will Tell