Lancaster County Amish population grows despite urban sprawl

About $2,100. That’s how much Premier Wab Kinew’s bracket creep tax hike could cost your family by 2030, depending on how much you make.

Bracket creep is an income tax hike that happens when the government stops indexing tax brackets to inflation. That means that after getting a cost-of-living raise, taxpayers can be bumped into a new tax bracket and have their tax bill increased even though they can’t afford to buy more.

Think about it this way: A raise that only covers higher grocery prices isn’t a real raise. You’re not richer. Your cart costs the same. But the bigger number on your paycheque bumps you into a higher bracket. That means higher taxes on a paycheque that buys the exact same number of groceries as last year.

That’s why most provincial governments and the federal government adjust income tax brackets with inflation.

‘Amor mundi’, love of the world, is a basic tenet of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of life and closely related to her idea of republican (i.e., democratic) politics. Currently, Western democracies have strayed far from the ideals stressed in this view.

Our leaders seem more preoccupied with self preservation and personal aggrandizement than public service, sometimes leaning heavily toward authoritarianism. Our supposed political priorities seem wildly out of whack with the public interest or good. “Contemptus mundi,” scorn for the world, appears to be winning. Democracies would benefit from an Arendtian rebirth of principles.

Key to Arendt’s ideas are the complex concepts of plurality, natality and action based on responsibility — the very premises upon which democracy is built. In their simplest forms, plurality means acknowledging that human reality rests on living respectfully with others. Natality implies that the uniqueness each new birth brings into the world offers hope for original beginnings and societal renewal. Action means political participation based on shared responsibility for making the world better.

By the world, Arendt envisaged the relationships formed by the interactions between people. The love she imagined is not self-serving, manipulative, abusive or exclusionary. Absent are the racial and gender discrimination, religious divisiveness, coercion and control that presently dot our political landscapes.

A Good Samaritan who was trying to help a woman who appeared to be suffering from a drug overdose on Tuesday night was instead stabbed by her companion, police say.

The victim, a 51-year-old man, came across the woman near Jubilee Avenue and Osborne Street at about 9:15 p.m. on Tuesday and tried to assist her, before a suspect came up and stabbed him in the upper body. Police say the suspect knows the woman.

The 51-year-old was rushed to hospital in unstable condition, where he was given medical treatment. The woman, too, was taken to hospital for medical attention. Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service personnel alerted police to the incident.

Patrol officers, along with a police dog unit, found the suspect on the 400 block of Brandon Avenue just before 11 p.m. He tried to run, but officers made the arrest and seized two knives, police said.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My neighbour mowed the words “dumb ass” into my lawn, which had grown way too long while I was staying at the lake in my new cabin — for four weeks.

I agree my long front lawn got annoying to look at on our residential street. So, I got home and got out of my car, and took pictures of what he did to my lawn — in front of some neighbours for witnesses.

Then I unpacked my stuff, and that night just before bed I finally mowed the lawn with my loud mower. I did it in my own sweet time and went to bed, still mad. I honestly thought my neighbour was mostly just jealous because he doesn’t have a cabin himself!

I’d finally cooled off by noon the next day, so I went out and bought the guy a 12-pack, and left the beer on his back steps, with a card saying, “You can relax now!”