Chapter 4

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f7bcd93a-cf3d-4c59-9ec3-716e2e2607a1&k=85645

This article is about the new billboards that are going to be put up along the Highway of Tears to warn females the dangers of hitchhiking. These billboards are inspired by approximately 20 women who have disappeared on this highway. It will feature a young female hitchhiker with ghostly figures trying to warn her of the consequences. The government plans to install 10 or more of these billboards along 724km of road, from Prince Rupert to Price George, in hopes of promoting safety.

This is a perfect example of the Wagner’s law of increasing state activity, which states that government expenditures grow faster than the total output of goods and services. From the Highway of Tears’ point of view, you can see that the government must spend way more than just the costs of constructing the highway. Afterwards, they must spend even more money to provide services for the highway. Not counting the billboards for instance, the government has to organize patrol in order to keep the highway safer, either to enforce speed limits or other laws. From time to time, they have to fix worn out roads and replace them with new concrete. And this goes for all the other goods or services that the government provides for us.

No wonder why the government always tries to milk money off its citizens through taxation. The total amount of goods and services that the government manages and provides is unimaginable. I now see the importance of our progressive tax system, and why it is important that everyone has the ability to pay tax, because we are the only ones who have the ability to fund all these services, and with Canada’s limited population, this fact is even more important. In my opinion, if we had a flat tax system, the government would have less revenue, since a lot more people would not be able to pay the tax. As a result, the goods and services we get will be cut back. Imagine how much worse our education system can possibly get in the future. Few years back, they began to squish 30-35 of us into each classroom… You can tell when they have gone too far if kids start sitting on each other’s lap.