Dear Federal Government: Go f*ck yourselves

I like a little bit of government. I really do. But not when they persistently insist on slamming my generation with more damn hidden taxes that confiscate wealth from my generation and redistribute it as they see fit. Thanks, but no thanks, I think I know how I’d rather spend my money.

My discontent with the federales came when old Moneybags Martin made cuts to the CHST, which hit postsecondary education quite hard. Granted, PMPM had to do whatever he had to do in order to balance the country’s books. Something like 80% of the cuts were targeted at transfers to the provinces that were originally intended for health care and education.

Back in my Gateway days, I wrote two articles about Paul Martin. The FIRST detailed how he was able to increase the debts of students by making it impossible for them to bankrupt on student debt for ten years after they graduate. This is an unjustified discrimination against my generation, and constitutes a hidden tax. PMPM did not eliminate the deficit; rather, he passed a little bit of it on to me in the form of student debt, which I have to pay interest on. Who benefits? the banks, of course, as they get all that greasy interest from me.

PMPM did nothing to help students who have student debt. Rather, he made the burden worse and introduced a hidden tax on intellectual and human capital in the form of student debt and the interest paid on it. What a joke.

My discontent was furthered by this year’s federal budget. Here I cite my SECOND Gateway article on PMPM’s disregard for my generation. In that article, I cited an Ipsos-Reid poll of the spending priorities of 2,000 Canadians, and the 2005 Federal Budget hit on every one of these priorities, save for one. Guess? Yep, education.

But my Post-Walsingham Tipping Point has finally arrived. Here I refer to the total scam the Federal Government is running called the CMHC. If you are a young couple who wants to buy a house these days, and you don’t have 25% to put down on a house (’cause you’ve been payin that stupid student loan off), you are mandated by law to take out mortgage insurance. But wait - that insurance doesn’t insure you against losss. It insures your lender.

Peter Shawn Talylor has an outrageous article in the July 29th edition of the Financial Post that you MUST read. (Subscriber only - LINK). In the meantime, read, THIS piece over at CTV.

Americans don’t need mortgage insurance if they have 20 per cent or more to put down. And they also pay about three-quarters of a point lower for the insurance. That may not sound like much, but it adds up.

Let’s say you’re buying the average Canadian home at $251,000, and can put down only 10 per cent down. The Canadian mortgage insurance rate of 2 per cent would cost you $4,518. The American rate at 1.15 per cent would cost just $2,597.

“And if you consider the fact that most people roll the insurance costs into their mortgage, they don’t see it, but they end up paying interest on it for the 25 years or so that they’re paying their mortgage. So you add another $1,400 in interest on to that,” says Taylor.

“So it’s a pretty big difference between Canada and the U.S. — and mainly because, I would argue, the government controls the business here.”

Taylor says homeowners should do more than just gripe; they should take their complaint to the government.

“What I’d like them to do is get upset about it,” he says.

Oh, I’m upset about this allright. This sort of social contract is a cruel joke. You think that you will make a better life for yourself by taking four years out of the workforce (which, in Alberta, costs a young guy $40,000 in lost income per year, due to the construction boom) and you go and get an education. But if your parents weren’t rich enough to pay $5,000 tuition, you have to pay it and pay interest on it. That’s a regressive tax. Then, if mommy and daddy can’t drop 25% of your home’s purchase price, you have to pay tax in the form of mortgage insurance that doesn’t protect you, but your lender.

What I find absolutely disgusting is how politicians of all stripes see this as just another revenue source. CMHC raises over a billion dollars per year, yet pays out $51 million in disbursements on loan defaults. Did ya know that?

Welcome to Canuckistan.