What Would You Do If Someone Called You A Liar In Public

Probably sue them at the very least or at least make that person list when I lied and I would stand up and defend myself. That is what happens in the real world but in politics the liars know many of the people who vote have short memories, feel guilty that they voted for a liar or don't give a damn.

Dalton: Why should we believe you?
By Lorrie Goldstein

To truly appreciate Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's fourth and final budget before the next provincial election, you have to treat it like any good piece of science fiction.

You have to willingly suspend your disbelief. You have to believe that the promises McGuinty made in his budget released yesterday, he intends to keep.

This as opposed to the scores of election and other promises McGuinty made over the past four years and then broke.

Yesterday, from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Conservative Leader John Tory and NDP Leader Howard Hampton repeatedly asked how Ontarians can possibly believe anything McGuinty says now, based on his past record. They're right.

McGuinty says that thanks to his Liberal know-how, we're entering a long period of sustainable government financing and balanced provincial budgets. But why would any Ontarian believe that, especially based on McGuinty's word alone?

In addition to all his shattered election promises, McGuinty unleashed a cynical budget yesterday that provides no broad-based income tax relief for hardworking, middle-class Ontarians -- the same people Prime Minister Stephen Harper ignored a few days earlier in his budget.

Worse, McGuinty's budget attempts to guilt-trip middle-class Ontarians into silence. How? By earmarking billions of their tax dollars to be paid out, eventually, to poor families and children now living on welfare, through his so-called Ontario Child Benefit.

This is classic Liberal strategy -- make middle-class taxpayers feel guilty by setting things up so it looks like, if they demand needed tax relief for themselves, they don't care about the poor.

It's all nonsense. It ignores the fact that McGuinty imposed the largest single tax grab in Ontario's history three years ago, his so-called health premium, which costs every taxpayer up to $900 a year and rakes more than $2 billion annually into government coffers.

Worse, McGuinty brazenly did that after promising during the 2003 election campaign that he would not raise taxes during his first mandate as premier.

In short, he lied to us then. So why would anyone believe him now, on anything he has to say in this budget?