No Free Lunch

While I'm sympathetic with people concerned about taxes and government spending, there are a few facts Harper is hoping you will overlook. 

There is NO free lunch. If the government lowers taxes in one area or offers you a boutique tax credit, something else will have to be cut or other charges (taxes) will need to be increased. Try to figure out where the money is coming from to pay for all of these:

• Buying votes with an ill-advised GST cut that has put Canada into a structural deficit. Cost: $25 BILLION PER YEAR in lost federal revenues
• Legal fees for the Con party: $482 million and counting
• Government advertising for one year: $136.3 million
• Tar sands and other fossil fuel subsidies: $1.4 billion
• Advertising tar sands: $9 million for one year
• Gazebos and toilets for Tony Clement's riding: $50 million
• Advertising war of 1812 and world wars: $40 million plus planned $27.5 million per year until 2020 for war commemoration
• G8/G20 photo ops: $1.2 billion
• Yearly personal security for the prime minister- comes with a handy closet: $20 million+
• Robocalls: it’s before the courts (still)
• Senator’s expenses during Con party fundraising tours (who knows?)
• They don’t know: $3.1 billion (money that just "disappeared")
• Prisons: $16 billion - double spending by 2015 (an increase of $5 billion annually)
• Media & communications staffers: $263 million
• Court costs to fight disabled veterans: $750,000 and rising
• Accommodation for DND and CSEC to buy the Nortel building: $1 billion +
• Shipping armoured cars to India for Harper to NOT meet the PM: $1 million
• Iraq war: $166 million
• Panda rental $10 million

And just remember, this is the government that canceled the Home Insulation Program, which would have reduced home heating bills, and replaced it with the Home Renovation Program, which means we all get to subsidize someone's new deck.

I think it's great when voters get concerned about government spending.  Just make sure you're in possession of all the facts.