Some pundits have declared that government cannot "afford" to reduce taxes. Some politicians say that proposed tax cuts might "cost" too much. Journalists sometimes ask how lower taxes will be "paid for."

All three phrases are based on the assumption that government owns - or is entitled to own - the wealth created by Canadians. It's as though government has a legitimate claim to every dollar earned, giving only what it can "afford" back to the people who earned it. Only a government which already owns every dollar in every bank account in Canada would need to "pay for" a tax cut.

It "costs" me money to buy groceries because the money belongs to me in the first place. If I were spending someone else's money to buy groceries, or if the store gave them to me without charge, the groceries would cost me nothing at all. But if groceries "cost" me something, it's because the money spent to buy them truly belongs to me. In the same way, if it "costs" government money to cut taxes, this implies that government is money's rightful owner, or has a valid first claim to Canada's wealth.

This question of who has a valid first claim to wealth - government or people - should be pondered as we approach voting day on June 28. It just so happens that June 28 was last year's Tax Freedom Day, when Canadians finally started working for themselves. In other words, the average Canadian works from January 1 to June 27 to pay all the sales, income, property and other taxes collected by three levels of government.

Wealth in Canada - and every other country in the world - is created by workers and managers, investors and businesses, buyers and sellers, inventors and manufacturers. Every day, millions of individuals make choices about what to buy, where to work, how to run their businesses, which new products and services to develop, and where to invest their money. People make billions of voluntary decisions and perform billions of voluntary tasks, resulting in a prosperous economy with a vast multitude of different foods, clothes, products and services. Wealth is created because people work, buy, sell, farm, manufacture, invent, trade, invest, explore, develop resources, take risks, set up new businesses etc.

If government is our master, and we its servants, then government certainly has the first claim on all wealth produced by people. It would then follow that government has to "pay for" tax cuts which it can't "afford" because lower taxes "cost" too much.

But if wealth belongs first to those who created it, and if government should be our servant and not our master, then government is not entitled - morally or legally or otherwise - to all of our money.

The question is not whether government can "afford" tax cuts, but whether Canadians can afford to continue paying 49% of their earnings to support three levels of government. If individuals are the rightful and legitimate owners of the money in their bank accounts, the question is not how government will "pay for" tax cuts, but rather how much the politicians' spending promises will cost us.

In short, if wealth belongs first to people, and if government is their servant, then tax cuts cost nothing, are always affordable, and don't ever need to be paid for.