Dear Editor:

Re: Letter by Rick Law (Dec.30/09) who illuminated the legacy of Premier Mike Harris stating that some of his  fateful decision were driven by the desire to ‘balance the budget!

While Harris’ buzz words were indeed the so called ‘common sense revolution’, can he really be blamed for everything gone awry ?

It seems to me that every occupant of the Premiers’ office in living memory has struggled to balance the budget, brought on by overspending in the first place.

And while Harris may have sold the Hwy. 407 with disastrous consequences it is now Mcguinty’s turn, who is contemplating selling assets like the LCBO, the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg, and/or others in order to balance the budget or to get closer to it.

He actually said ‘Everything is on the table’ when referring to the sale of crown assets, and I firmly believe that this was also the primary motivator to give us the irreversible HST because the Fed’s are bribing the province with a few billion for which, by the way, McGuinty had no mandate by us, the people.

So our First Minister treats us to a couple of cheques out of these billions as a pacifier but the rest stays in Provincial coffers and of course makes the budget look better.

In the meantime our government claims the HST to be revenue neutral, and perhaps it is, in the overall picture as viewed by the Minister of Finance. However, it is very much a matter of perception and the 2 cheques distributed to us lowly citizens will soon be spent and forgotten;

The one per cent reduction in personal income tax is totally negligible and won’t be felt by anybody;  but the HST will confront absolutely everybody in the Province  multiple times on a daily basis and very dramatically so.

Thus, I’m afraid there is some kind of infestation at Queen’s Park that infests the Ministers, the various Premiers and others in spending more then is collected and the services of a pest remover is called for.

 Let’s be quite clear: the continual problem of balancing the budget is indicative of us living beyond our means!

Wulf Graunitz,

 Palgrave