Lower taxes are good for Toronto!!

While lower taxes are good for Toronto, the fact that lower taxes can only follow through planned reductions in public spending should come as no surprise. To taxpayer's chagrin however, the few remaining 'left-leaning Miller Gang' councillors responsible for pillaging the city treasury for the last seven years have made clear they have no intention of carrying out their mandate and are reduced to 'grandstanding' to deflect public ridicule. They are refusing to otherwise balance the books as ravaging services thus reducing debt seems to be anathema to these folks!

While there is certainly enough blame to go around, to expect the taxpayer to accept an onerous tax increase is hypocritical! Despite Naomi Klein's attack on nearly everybody in her 'War on Activism' tirade, Canadians, specifically Torontonians have certainly not earned the moniker 'draconian' when you consider that we are generous by nature. But when ballooning debt service costs are the number 3 item on the list of expenditures and poised to oust Police as the number one item, this cannot continue and something has to be done!

But getting back to Miss Klein's sanctimonious and disingenuous insult, to earn 'draconian', consider how Wikipedia describes Draco, an Athenian legislator, who codified the laws around 600 BC, the first time the Athenian laws were put down in writing. Although details of his legislation are now unknown, the laws which treated rich and poor alike for the first time were notoriously harsh (hence the adjective ‘Draconian’) with nearly all offenses; including idleness, I might add punishable by death.

Of course, those who hurl around the 'draconian' charge probably do not know that Draco's laws were considered 'just' at the time. For the first time in Athenian law, the codes were written down so folks would know what was legal and what was illegal, thus they could avoid inadvertently breaking the law. Also, it is said, the government finally took responsibility for enforcing punishment for crimes, thus ending the need for vendettas.

When asked why he decreed death as the penalty for most offenses, it is said that Draco commented that small offenses deserved death and he knew of no punishment more severe for great ones and now more than 2,600 years later, the adjectival form of his name 'draconian' is still tossed around in Toronto anytime someone decries injustice.

Alas, Ford's election pledge to Stop the Gravy Train does not include a death sentence for those who still want to spend more than they bring in so no one can get away with hurling the charge of 'draconian deficit cut', either. On the other hand, considering the unconscionable level of recidivism practiced in Toronto during Miller's reign, 'draconian' punishment might have a  certain appeal in some quarters. Lamentably, capital punishment is not on the table for discussion, only non-criminal matters of spending less taxpayer's money.

What should be condemned though is the current 'draconian deficit' in Toronto; $4.4 billion dollars in net debt that constitutes a death sentence on our kid’s and their kid's future prosperity, not a 'draconian deficit cut'. Metaphorically speaking, when the ship started sinking, one would have thought that these 'left-leaning' folks would consider actually pumping out more water than rushed in. One is left to wonder if they even knew how to 'stabilize' a 'draconian deficit' that ballooned on their watch!







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