Dear Editor:
Why should taxpayers have to pay more in taxes each year for a proposed child-care program? The taxpayers have to suffer for problems caused by fellow taxpayers with children who do not know how to budget their personal lives.
These people go and sell their home and buy another home with a larger mortgage payment. They trade their car in for a new car with payments lasting seven years. They decide to buy new furniture, paying for it by a credit card. Every weekend they go out to a restaurant for a family dinner and pay for the dinner with a credit card. Some also go and buy a boat and a RV paid for by monthly payments that they use for two weeks a year, and for the other 50 weeks, the boat and RV stayed parked in their driveway. Their lifestyle has now caused that both parents now have to have a job, all of the time forgetting that someone has to watch over the kids, another cost added to their underfunded lifestyle. These taxpayers should realize that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.
If they did not over extend themselves financially, daycare would not be needed because one parent would be able to stay home with the children, until the children reach the age of where they attend daily school. Just plain old economic sense. The proposed child-care plan sounds great to these taxpayers in severe debt, but the plan also costs all taxpayers to pay more in taxes.
Quebec is the only province in B.C. that has a taxpayer-funded child-care program. The program started in 1997 at a yearly cost of $300 million per year. In 2015, that same program was costing the taxpayers of Quebec $2.6 billion per year. In eight years, the cost of the plan has increased 767 per cent. In summary, you debt-ridden taxpayers need to sit down with a financial consultant and totally forget about a taxpayer-funded child care plan.
Joe Sawchuk, by email
