I have seldom seen an idea as stupid as the one introduced by the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation.
If Alberta were to cut 7.86 billion dollars from the provincial budget we could, cut out Kindergarden to grade 12 education, (6.5 billion dollars) and post-secondary education (2.1 billion dollars). That would leave us with a 740 million dollar surplus. We could cut healthcare spending by 43% to balance the budget, or we could simply stop paying doctors that would save us about 7.92 billion dollars. We could also cut the entire AISH program (1.1 billion dollars), support for low-income senior (353 million dollars) and slash all infrastructure spending and maintenance (6.6 billion dollars). That would leave us with a 250 million dollar surplus.
Alberta is suffering from Tory fiscal incompetence, they made irresponsible tax cuts and were able to paper over it by using resource revenues. The plan for the 2013-2014 budget was resource revenue was 29% percent of the budget, the next largest source of revenue is personal income tax at 21%.
The Tories ended progressive income taxes, ended health care premiums, lowered the oil royalties and slashed corporate tax rates. Do we have anything to show for this oil boom? We haven’t expanded the heritage trust fund; no rainy funds; we haven’t maintained our infrastructure well, and our province is infrastructure starved.
The Tories can’t blame anyone but themselves.