Not having a plan in March is starting to show

Remember months ago when Albertans didn’t vote and we got far too many seats for the incumbent Conservatives (to me they lost the title “Progressive” a long time ago)? Remember how “Steady-Eddie” Stelmach ran with no plan?

Seems it’s caught up to him.

Stelmach said the provincial treasury is being depleted by crashing commodity markets and loss of tax revenue, which could see spending outstrip revenues for the fiscal year — technically producing a deficit that is illegal under provincial law.

I’m sure he was later heard to say, “what, bubbles burst?”

Seriously, did he honestly expect that cutting royalties, taxes, and every other source of income we have, while spending more was a good, long-term idea? Or was he only looking out for his friends?

And that bit about the “legality” of a deficit? That’s from King Ralph’s days. Basically (big-C) Conservatives like making laws to show that they’re going to do stuff (even if they later don’t follow them). Ralph wanted to get Alberta out of debt so badly that he crippled our health care system, schools, infrastructure, and basically everything else so that we could get there. Now we’re debt free with a diminishing amount of money in the bank.

So what is likely to happen?

Well, rather than do anything smart, like actually hold the oil companies that are raping our province accountable to what they should be paying, or reviewing any of the income methods, they are likely to suggest that we ought to cut funding to this, that and the other.

At least this will help them further destroy public health care in this province, making way for American companies to move in (which ironically helps someone else’s economy more than our own).

Also, I guess they’ll ignore the fact that it’s recessions when universities see enrolment jumps (therefore needing more money to handle the influx).

At least this gives the opposition members (all 11 of them) the chance to say, “I told you so.”

Hell, even the National Post is criticizing Stelmach.

Confidence that the Alberta government knows what it is doing is at low ebb.

This tax-plus-investment incentive policy approach has been tried (and failed miserably) before. It was called the National Energy Program in 1981. The federal Liberal government introduced the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax (yes, a tax on revenue, just like royalties) and implemented Petroleum Incentive Payments as a subsidy on new investment. Just like today’s environment, world oil prices starting falling in 1981, and Canada’s petroleum industry suffered a multi-year recession. Who would have thought that an Alberta government would pursue a similar strategy 28 years later?/blockquote>

But we should remember that it was the Liberals in this province who gave ol’ Ralph the idea to cut spending in the 90s.