We've heard about "cheap dates," and now we have "cheap Tories" too. Apparently it only takes $16 worth of tax cuts to get a Tory MP to support a budget that is both Liberal and liberal. Sure, most Conservatives won't actually vote in favour of a budget that continues fleecing Canadian taxpayers, but their plans to abstain from the vote amount to the same thing.

In spite of massive over-taxation - politicians call it a "surplus" - year after year after year, last week's federal budget delivers a $16 tax cut in 2006, with plans for an eventual $192-per-year tax cut in 2009. This means Ottawa will continue taxing the incomes of people earning minimum wage. It means that by 2009, a person will keep only the first $10,000 of earnings before Ottawa takes 16%, then 22%, then 26% and finally 29% of her pay cheque. It means that in 2006, a Canadian family will only be able to keep its first $15,232 before it starts paying 16%, then 22%, then 26% and then 29% income tax. It means that Tax Freedom Day - the day we've finished working to support three levels of government and start working for ourselves - will continue to arrive in late June rather than in May or April.

But the so-called "Conservatives" in the House of Commons are satisfied with a personal income tax cut of just $16 next year.

Continued over-taxation is not the only problem with last week's budget. The Liberals have now started on their grand plan to spend $5 billion of our money on government-run daycare institutions. There is no help at all for parents who want to care for their own children at home. But if you want to put your children in institutions to be looked after by unionized strangers, this budget will make money available for that purpose.

Stephen Harper's Conservative Opposition supposedly favours a per-child tax exemption to empower all parents with choice on child care. But now they are poised to support a federal budget which does absolutely nothing for families who make the difficult financial choice to have one parent look after children at home. A failure to vote against this budget gives the Liberals a green light to start spending $5 billion on institutional child care. If the Conservatives aren't willing to stand up for their principles by voting against this budget, they certainly won't have the courage to take the right stance in the next federal election or as a government.

The Conservatives are supposedly against the Kyoto Protocol, but by supporting this budget they will endorse wasting billions of tax dollars on it. The Liberals have no plan on how Canada will meet its Kyoto targets, but they still plan to spend billions of our money. With the U.S., China, India, and most countries not participating, it makes no sense for Canada to hurt its economy in pursuit of impossible objectives. Further, if federal bureaucrats can't keep track of guns in Canada, how will they ever keep track of a colourless, odourless gas in other countries? Speaking of guns, if Conservatives don't defeat this budget, even more money will be wasted on a useless registry which takes police resources away from making our streets safer.

Ironically the Bloc Quebecois and NDP, who should be thrilled with this budget's high level of spending and with plans to spend billions on Kyoto, the gun registry and institutional daycare, will vote against this budget. But the combined Bloc and NDP efforts will certainly fail if Conservatives abstain from the vote.

Continued over-taxation of individuals and families, wasted tax dollars on Kyoto and a useless gun registry, and billions spent on institutional child care are good reasons for Stephen Harper and all Conservative MPs to show up for the budget vote, and vote "No."

If that triggers another election, so be it.

The cost of another election is but a tiny fraction of the cost of continued over-taxation Canadians will suffer if this budget passes.

Mr. Harper, if not you, who? And if not now, when?