Why do I have to keep paying?

Having dealt with the rearing of children yesterday, I was most unamused by the discussions which the Treasurer has been having with the media recently. In one of the most paternalistic set of comments it has been my misfortune to see from this government to date there was discussion about how 30-40 years ago the bleeding obvious was apparent, namely that there was a population bubble, and that even blind Freddy could have seen that around about now there would in all likelihood be a problem with large groups of people heading into older age and hence leaving the work force - leaving with their intellectual property, leaving with their experience. At the same time these same people would be expecting the same level of services from government that they had been paying for the generations that came before them and would in fact require access to the more modern medcial facilities that their taxes and their lives had helped to fashion and bring into being.

What would a prudent series of governments have done about this KNOWN risk to the country? Well most people would say that the prudent government would have recognised the issue and started to save well before the event took place so that they would have in place the required money to put back into the welfare of their citizens when the time came.

Not in Australia. Instead we have had a series of governments of all politicial persuasions which have spent the money we have raised for them with some of the highest taxes in the world and are NOW telling us that we have to keep on paying for the privilege of staying alive. We have to continue in work for longer, we have to make other arrangements for our financial well being because the pension system would be sent broke unless we do so. We have to keep paying extraordinarily high taxes to be able to help pay for the infrastructure that has not been repaired or maintained and is now wearing out. The litany of 'we have to . . .' comments just keeps growing.

I for one am sick of it!

Let's just look at the way that businesses contribute to all of this. They already have marginal tax rates that are far less than many earners of wages and they have opportunities to discount more tax because of their expenses on the business. Yet they use more of the resources than all of the people in their daily lives and in spite of their constant yammering about how badly done by they are, they continually make record profits year after year by passing on their costs and their expenses to us, the poor schmucks that have no choice but to pay for their goods.

Let's talk about infrastructure. Who causes more wear and tear on the roads - you and I as motorists going to work or for the trips to the supermarket or the sports ground or large commercial vahicles which are on the roads 24/7? Who pays most for the usage? Gee, this is hard to caclulate - we do - the average motorist. Who gets richer? The companies who cost the charges of their freight into the cost of the goods we buy and of course the government who cops at least 38 cents in the dollar for our petrol costs as well as the additional 10% for GST. In essence that is 48 cents in the dollar that is going to government coffers each time we pay for petrol and what do they do with the largesse? They sure don't fix the roads.

You can do the same calculations with almost anything that requires an infrasctructure to maintain from water to electricity, gas, telephones etc. In all cases OUR costs are rising, the costs to the businesses that profit are off set by tax deductions and we are being asked to do more and more just for the privilege to stay alive and healthy.

Not fair I reckon.