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The Liberals are coming for our money

The Liberals are coming for our money "Liberals' family cash a boon" ... what family cash? Kyle Carruthers' Aug. 19th column assumes Trudeau's "plan" as given, predicated, of course, on the Liberals forming government and further predicated on the assumptio

“Liberals’ family cash a boon” ... what family cash? Kyle Carruthers’ Aug. 19th column assumes Trudeau’s “plan” as given, predicated, of course, on the Liberals forming government and further predicated on the assumption that the Liberals largess will be “free,” thus all gain and no pain. Don’t buy it!

Unlike the Liberals sucker promises and self-serving calculations, the Conservatives’ child benefit payments and their general tax reductions are real - actual money in our hands, not in a government program, which we may or may not be able to access.

If elected, Justin, who admires China’s government for its ability to get things done, will hoist our wallets on his petard and take back the $1,920/year families presently get for each child under six and the tax breaks we have gained under the Conservatives, which, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, amounts to about “$1,000.00/person due to tax changes introduced in the past decade ... the lion’s share of which has gone to low middle income earners” (Yukon News, May 28, 2014).

For a family of four with two children under six, that would total about $4,000 + (2 x $1,920) or about $7,800.00. Tax does have to be paid on the child benefit, plus the former child tax credit that people with high taxable incomes could claim has been eliminated, but the net financial benefit to Canadians remains well beyond anything the Liberals or NDP can even conceive let alone deliver after they first take it away from us.

The Conservatives have also brought us back to a balanced budget. Sure, the nipping and tucking needed to accomplish this has caused some inconvenience and perhaps angst, but not much really. And, lets face it, we can not continue to live beyond our means on borrowed money. Yet Justin thinks we can. His weasel words say he believes in a balanced budget, but he says getting to a balanced budget will depend on what kind of a financial/economic mess he finds the Conservatives have left. In other words, folks, if elected, he is coming after your money. (If angry Tom doesn’t get it first.)

More to the point, there is no financial/economic mess to be cleaned up because the Conservatives have actually done a good job of managing our economy and done so under extremely difficult global circumstances. Perhaps Justin and Tom think they could have avoided the consequences of a slowing world economy by playing King Canute, standing on Canada’s economic shore ordering the world’s bad economic tide not to come in, but that is simple sound-bite baloney.

The Conservatives may rightly deserve a scolding for some of their decisions, but in the main they have done a good job. Let’s not turn our disapproval over those things they did not handle well, most of which are very petty, into a kick in pants on ourselves by voting for the foppish prince of belle hair or the bearded bard of central planning.

Rick Tone

Whitehorse