I have been thinking about this topic for a long time. The past year or so it has been on my mind a lot. My question is: when will it stop? The nickel and diming of society (and me in particular) is having a huge negative effect. Each pay cheque I give the government a large chunk. More gets taken off for CPP. I drive a vehicle and buy gas. Insurance rates went up, gas rates are going up. Buying anything in a store and there is at least a 7% tax if not the much higher 14.5% tax.

The government is broke and they are cutting back everywhere. The schools have no money. Healthcare has no money. The highways department has no money. The local municipalities have no money. I have no money! It is all being taken away from me in nickels and dimes by new taxes, higher taxes, or new user fees.

I want to know where all this money goes? Where does it get used? It is getting to the point where I now have to think twice about going out for dinner. That is sad, and a huge detriment to the economy. It feels like a downward spiral.

Part of my problem is actually a benefit to me. Right now I am highly motivated to get out of debt. I am putting large sums each month towards credit card debt that I have accumulated. In as little as three months I will be debt free (minus my truck and my student loans). Once I am debt free I intend to continue my thrifty ways and squirrel the money away into a high interest savings account.

Back to my rant though. The nickel and diming is getting pretty brutal. We as a society are paying more and more every day, and getting less and less to show for it. As it gets worse, I (and I assume others) have less free cash for spending (I keep myself to a strict budget). In my mind this means the economy slows down more. As the economy slows, the government and businesses need more money to stay afloat, and prices rise. Hence the downward spiral.

What is rock bottom for a society? What can we do? How do we stop this?

As an aside, I don’t believe the current government is completely to blame for this. I do believe that they are doing their best to clean up the mess that this province is in. They do need to realize that the citizens of B.C. are getting sick and tired of this though.