Lin Gackle continues her ongoing demands for more government public service spending programs and opposes solidly researched reasoning for their reduction or elimination. She completely ignores the fact that the only public service jobs that I have criticized are those that are insidiously designed to promote citizens dependence on some level of government.
For her to arbitrarily insist that I consider teachers, health care workers, police, and firefighters second class citizens is not what I said, or even implied in my original letter. (In fact in 2014, 2016 and 2017, I was instrumental in raising approximately $65,000.00 at fundraisers in support of Veterans and First Responders police, firefighters and emergency health workers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care about critically important public service employees Ms. Gackle?
My criticism is and always will be directed toward those public service employees who are hired only to establish and manage programs that do nothing but increase government deficit spending and increase taxes or fees that are an unnecessary burden on every citizen. These costly programs are found in every community and province in the country and are constantly being expanded by government decree without citizen consultation or approval.
In Cochrane alone, the best example of a useless and unnecessary program is the carbon tax, costing the average home owner approximately $150.00 annually on home heating bills alone. Next, the unnecessary duplication/expansion of recycling programs. The establishment of the Cochrane Recycling Centre that I fully support should have been sufficient for people to deliver their own garbage. But no, we now have an unnecessary collection system that picks up what citizens should be personally delivering to the Eco Centre. The annual cost to homeowners is approximately $300.00. Another example of an unnecessary fee is the Direct Energy municipal franchise fee (charged by the municipality to ATCO Gas for access to our community), which is approximately $90.00 annually per home owner. There’s something seriously wrong when citizens are forced to pay these fees or taxes without proven necessity.
As ‘Inbox’ readers will recall in her letters to the editor, Ms. Gackle has continually demanded that government discontinue spousal income splitting, place a tax on tax free savings accounts and provide a subsidy to single people? These requests are the epitome of creeping socialist dependence on governments that people like Ms. Gackle expect instead of personal responsibility and self reliance. Liberal and NDP governments have literally destroyed Alberta’s economy by chasing investment away and we can no longer afford this thinking if we wish to maintain our existing social programs.
I challenge anyone who disagrees to call me. I haven’t moved.
L. Leugner
