The definition of Murraynomics: claim there is a financial crisis in the City of Winnipeg and the only way to solve it is to raise taxes. Cutting through all of the rhetoric of the Mayor's state of the city address, there was one clear message (or warning, depends on how one looks at it) - institute a 1% municipal sales tax. Call it the MST (Murray Sales Tax).

Policy on the fly A trial balloon Whatever it was, there is little doubt that once again the Mayor is taking direct aim at taxpayers' wallets. During his speech, the Mayor emphatically stated "I will not raise property taxes." Okay Mr. Mayor, you don't want to raise property taxes but you have no problem raising them in other areas Taxpayers don't need their politicians with new taxing powers - guaranteed if it is 1% this year, it will be 2% the next. More to the point, all taxes are disincentives, but it is an issue of which disincentive is worse than the other. Switching from one tax to another is not the solution for a spend thrift politician any more than a smoker changing brands.

Why is it when there is even the remote possibility of a funding shortage the only thing politicians can come up with is to raise taxes Did it ever occur to anyone that the shortage might be caused by spending

The Mayor needs to look at his own financial house before he starts coming to taxpayers for more cash. Here are just a few suggestions: reduce the arts funding, eliminate business subsidies, reverse the decision to give the True North Centre an additional $1million, can the funding for a million dollar toilet and get rid of the generous grants program that City Hall has long touted. That saves about $12 million from the budget - that wasn't so hard.

For the past few months the Mayor has repeated ad nauseum that cities in Canada are not getting their fair share of gas tax revenues from Ottawa. He is absolutely right. But rather than picking our pockets for more money, we would suggest the Mayor should be focussed on working with his counterparts in the C5 to develop an alternative funding model when it comes to gas tax revenues - such as the Municipal Roadway Trust (MRT).

The MRT would transfer existing federal revenue directly to municipalities. Constitutionally speaking, municipalities are a provincial jurisdiction, however there is a precedent for the feds to directly pay municipalities cash-in-lieu of property taxes owed. To arrive at each municipality's share, GDP by municipality would be divided by the Canadian GDP, resulting in a percentage. If this formula were to be adopted the City of Winnipeg' s share would be $40.5 million.

So, in the end let's hope the idea of an MST does not make it onto the debating floor at City Hall. One last thought - If the mayor spent as much time coming up with ways to trim spending as he does new tax levers, Winnipeg would be the most competitive tax jurisdiction in the country.'