My how things change in the matter of a couple of months. In mid-September, Calgarians were sent a glossy, 18-page householder containing a doomsday message of the city's imminent financial collapse.

A mere two months later the city made a miraculous recovery, announcing late last week that it would in fact be running a $4-million surplus this year.

Confused? Well, who isn't. Not only has the seemingly downtrodden City of Calgary managed to put together a budget surplus, it somehow scraped together enough to publish the "Righting the Balance" householder that was tactfully inserted amongst the usual pile of junk mail and delivered to each home.

Just in case you didn't read the householder cover-to-cover, here's a quick summary: all of your tax dollars are being stolen by the big, bad federal and provincial governments, and if they don't immediately start handing it back to the City of Calgary, you should be mad - darn mad.

Throw in a couple of pictures of children playing in a swimming pool and police officers petting puppies, and voila, there's $100,000 of your hard-earned taxes down the drain.

Ironically, the householder also contained two pages of innovative ways the city has saved your tax dollars over the past few years.

Unfortunately, producing this glossy pamphlet wasn't one of them.

But the householder isn't just angry talk and sappy pictures; it goes on to specifically suggest three measures that would end the city's financial plight.

The first being that the provincial government eliminate the education portion of property taxes so the city can keep that money for itself.

Second, the province should give the city more money.

And third, the province give the city more ways to impose taxes.

If you thought you were overtaxed now, just imagine if municipalities are given more tax room, more of your provincial taxes, and more ways to impose taxes.

The province recently floated the idea that reducing or eliminating education property taxes might bring a smile to the faces of most taxpayers.

But not so fast. If Mayor Bronconnier has his way, you're never going to see a cent.

The city is correct to suggest property taxes might not be the most ideal form of taxation.

Very few people can justify using the perceived, unrealized value of your land and structures as a way to determine how much your family uses in local government services.

But, while property taxes might not be ideal, giving municipalities more ways to take money out of your pocket is not the answer. Bronconnier may want to introduce a sales tax, a gasoline tax, an income tax or a poll tax, but that doesn't mean the provincial government should let him.

Every level of government spends too much time and money trying to figure out new and innovative ways to come up with more revenue. If they spent half that amount of time figuring out how to more effectively spend the money they already have, we'd all be better off.

If the federal and provincial governments were limited to one form of taxation like municipalities perhaps we wouldn't be getting nickelled and dimed every time we turn around: income taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, health-care premium taxes, payroll taxes, dividend taxes, hotel room taxes, air conditioning taxes, recycling taxes and now some farmers are calling for a grocery tax.

Ironically, for all of its claims of poverty, the City of Calgary was still able to run a hefty surplus and not go into debt.

They need to remember, however, that taxpayers aren't their own personal piggy bank.

They should also be reminded about the story of the boy who cried wolf.

When the town folk finally realized the boy couldn't be believed when he cried for help, they all stopped listening.