Vote our taxes.

A taxpayer Bill of Rights is coming out tomorrow. I'll celebrate if Minister Shea includes one fix:

   Let us vote our taxes.  

That means on April 30th l say how much of my personal tax pie goes to each major spending category.  The government keeps some large percentage of discretionary override but is not at liberty to disregard 100% of the taxpayer vote.  Publish the aggregate size of those slices of pie every year after April 30th.  This will be a wholesome whiff of fresh air for the budget process.

There'll be folks wanting gun registries and folks gagging at gun registry follies.  Some folks will be banning all but rape abortions and others will want women's rights to terminate a born-alive fetus.  Some would disband the army and others would send the entirety of their tax to build up our armed forces.  But overall it would be soon clear what programs please neither the right nor the left and which ones will continue debatable.

The budget distribution would be shifted a few points every year by the citizen input and the lawmakers would have a large window on the thinking of Canadians.

BTW, at the link you will learn the CRA has recently streamlined how it gets information from banks which Luc Schulz translates, "the CRA will no longer be required to present a warrant to look at your books”