politics

Today I was listening to my favorite CBC show - Almanac and people were giving it to Minister Penner. 2 things came out of the discussion that I thought were interesting enough that I'd share them here.

1) Penner noted that NDP has flip flopped on the carbon tax/carbon planning idea. He noted the NDP plan for carbon credits/carbon exchange currently being toted around and then noted that the NDP had voted out/against the idea of that in principal months ago. He then said "I wouldn't drive with Ms. James, pause (paused long enough that I thought what the hell is he talking about that has nothing to do the carbon tax), she's all over the road." To which I started laughing pretty hard. I mean politicians don't usually talk like that - it was actually kind of refreshing.

2) A caller calls in and says he doesn't believe in global warming, but does believe in global cooling. Penner wasn't really listening, I don't think, because he went on Al Gore bender on all these scientists agreeing that humans have caused climate change. I don't think anyone was arguing against climate change - just that the planet is cooling and not warming and that a cooling trend has a direct impact on the people that are trying to heat their homes with natural gas and other fuels that are now being charged an additional 2%.

So where is the carbon tax money going? It's "tax neutral" - meaning our income tax is supposed to decrease to recover what we are now paying in additional taxes for carbon. But does it really add up?

Our family is paying at least $1,800 a year in gas for our cars and another $1,800 in natural gas. So that's $3,600 annually (pre-2% carbon tax). So that's $72 more a year that I'll pay for the governments carbon tax. Does it balance out? Well we got a $100 cheque in July for each of us, that's $400, and we'll see what I'll save on my taxes. So as far as I can tell for this year we are ahead. Now the tax escalates up over the next few years so we will see what it looks like in four years and we will see if it is even there in four years - who knows who will be making the rules by then.

What I also hate about the election season right now is that politicians seem unable to answer questions without first talking about their competition in a negative light. Doing the negative talk says to me that they aren't confident. A confident leader wouldn't need to talk about the other party and their plans and their mistakes. Tell me you are going to make my city, my province, my country a great place to live - economically, socially, and all the other 'lly's - and do it. Politicians need to remember that every day they are in office they are doing the work of the people - every day - not the first year in office and every day after that is campaigning to stay another term. Forget the second term - third term, fourth term.... treat every day like you are really trying to make a difference for us... the tax payers - aka your wage payers.

Where do you stand on the carbon tax? Have I misunderstood the carbon tax?