Politicians from another planet
Taxpayers and politicians don't live in the same world.
In Canada, we marvel over the he said-she said Ruby Dhalla battle and wonder, gee, why don't we, the average taxpayer, all have servants -- or is the politically correct word "caregivers" -- for our daily menial tasks?
We look at the pensions our MPs are eligible to receive -- $30,000 a year, indexed of course -- "earned" and eligible to be received after a scant six years in the House of Commons. We compare that to autoworkers on the verge of losing chunks of their pensions and most Canadians who have meagre RRSPs, worth less as the economy tanks, and wonder where do we sign up for the MP plan?
We scratch our heads as our politicians charge taxpayers for everything from bunny suits to a single bottle of Tylenol, and call those office expenses.
We're stunned (maybe not anymore) when fact-finding and learning trips overseas somehow attract more than one politician from a city council, and often a whole gaggle of them.
Then we look overseas during this long weekend celebrating the Queen and see the prim and proper Brits taking these abuses to new and astonishing levels.
Porn? Charge it. Light bulbs? Swimming-pool plumbing? Helipads? Bill the taxpayer.
Cleaning the moat around your castle? What could be more British or more parliamentary?
One politician even expensed horse manure. Clearly an unneeded expense based on all the poop flying around the MPs already.
The divisions in our society are becoming alarming. It's us in the real world, governed by many of them, our elected leaders, living in La La Land.
It's difficult to decide if these actions are what keep voters away from the polls in droves, or should propel us to vote.
Either way, it's time for our politicians to start acting more like leaders and less like the chosen ones, spending our money, bending the rules, breaking the rules, all with the feeling of immunity.
And it's also time for taxpayers to start hitting back.
ROB.GRANATSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA
1 comment:
I should remind you that the 'right' is on power, and is equally guilty of all of this. The difference of course is the righteous indignation while they ram their greedy faces into the trough. The righteous indignation, that people like you, eat right up...
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