A young man--eight years old--had leukemia from which he died. The medical people at one of the best children's hospital in Canada managed to give him two extra years of life. At that time, the provincial government mad a point of sending a 'bill' to the parents of the boy. The bill read

$504,000.00. Amount owing, $76.00.

I know that to be true. I saw the bill. The boy was my nephew. I think some people would be aghast at the cost, and having to spend their tax dollars on it, but I ain't one of 'em.

I have been a volunteer firefighter for 14 years now. I was an EMR, what Americans would call an EMT Basic. We have fire trucks worth $350,000. They are paid for by tax dollars. If you have a fire department in your city or town, village or hamlet, county or district, you helped pay for those trucks. People who object to their tax dollars being spent are frequently very happy to see us show up in the fancy trucks. When I was acting as an EMR, people were generally happy to see me. As a department in an average year we help save about 6-8 lives. Not much when about 30 people make up the department, but would you want one of those people to be you or a close family member? Would you complain about your tax dollar being wasted? IMO, probably not.