I'm in Canada where we are a fair bit more socialistic than the US of A. We pay taxes beyond what most in the US do and much more than we used to. I don't recall the exact numbers but I believe the tax burden now is much greater than it was in my father's time.
What really gets to me is what the government does with all that money. For an example, I used to live out at what we now consider the cottage. It is in a very small town on Lake of the Woods south of Kenora. I left there in 1975 to go to University. When I lived there we had a Police station and at least 3 fulltime local policemen year round and additional policemen in the summer time when the tourist population increased. There was a police boat stationed there that cruised the lake on a regular basis. We also had a Natural Resources base with several game wardens that cruised the lake. All of that is gone. There is no real presence of either force there now. I think the closest would be about 50 miles away in Kenora. There are guard rails along the highway in spots where the ditch is deep. They are posts buried in the ground with cables attached to them. When I was younger, these were all painted white and maintained regularly. I don't recall seeing them in need of paint. Today, they don't bother to paint them and significant numbers of them are broken off - likely by the snow ploughs in winter. They don't bother to replace let alone paint. There is talk of taking out all the navigation buoys on the lake because they don't want to pay to maintain them. If they do that, we will all have to have GPS with the local maps to avoid the reefs. I hope the underwater rocks are marked well on the GPS maps. Taxes are higher but basic services are gone. What the heck are they doing with all the money? If I had to guess, I would say that they have promoted to the point where there are lots of upper management types and no people left on the street to do the work. Lots of desk cops and highway engineers earning in excess of 6 figures moaning about the fact that they have no money to spend on the services their department is supposed to provide. Randy _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
