Did you get your HST bribe money yet?

Look what came in the mail today. A lovely brown envelope from the Ontario Government stuffed with cash. My HST bribe... er... relief cheque. The figure came to the princely sum of $100 big ones.

Then I thought to myself. I have to fill up my car about three times a month to carry me to my two jobs. One is located across town, the other in downtown Toronto. It costs me on average $40 to fill up my Civic. That's $120 a month in fuel expenses. Come July, that jumps to $130, assuming gas prices don't spike. It's not a lot really but I think it's the principle of the matter. That cheque won't even stretch a year, assuming gas was my only HST applicable expense. In the mean time, the job market is still in the tank and my wages have not increased.

Anyone who believes the HST will create jobs, or that companies will pass "savings" on to consumers is a fool. Each time the government creates a so called "revenue neutral" tax, it becomes anything but. Remember the GST was supposed to be revenue neutral?

Any savings to businesses will be eaten up by their increased tax burden. They too will now have to pay tax on items previously exempt from the PST. Fuel is the big one. So it does indeed work out to be revenue neutral for them, not for the Government.

I'm no economist but I'd sure like to know how this is going to create jobs and save me money. Maybe they'll use the "savings" to build more plazas and stuff them with minimum wage positions; because you know $10.25 an hour part time is more than enough to live on.

This is the second time Dalton McGuinty lied about not levying new taxes. Ontarians' tax burden has spiked but services have not improved. All it seems to be doing is funnelling more cash to pay for the onslaught of civil servants the government is hiring.

Under McGuinty's leadership, Ontario went from an economic powerhouse to a "have not" province. That was even before the recession of 2008. The hole we're in now was caused by years of government mismanagement. While the recession did hit us hard, the government wasn't financially prepared to deal with it. That's why they have the HST. They can't raise income taxes any higher so the government is forced to nickel and dime people to recoup the millions they wasted. When the NDP says you're taxing people too much, you might have a problem. It's making us all live on a little less, for nought.

Coming soon, I'm going to completely revamp Martin's Mill News with a new design. I'm going to clean up some of the old articles as well. Get rid of pointless rants, fix up the rest. Similar to what I did with MMN Tech. Stay tuned for the new and improved site in the next month or so.