Alberta Budget Predictions

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to guess what Alberta’s budget will look like tomorrow.

A lot of excuses, little substance, spending cutbacks, the return of red ink (that we supposedly made illegal, perhaps the RCMP should be ready outside the Legislature), and very little substance.

In other words, almost exactly what Harper presented a few months ago, minus the attempt at spending he added to gain enough Liberal confidence (which isn’t saying much) to continue to rule.

The gist of the Alberta budget is we’ve been cutting taxes and royalty rates (we are making less under our new plan then we were before the review Stelmach essentially ignored last year). The Conservatives of this province have never proven themselves to be fiscally accountable, any idiot could have balanced the budget with the oil prices that Klein had.

Now, I’ll state that I’m not personally opposed to budget deficits. Sometimes they’re necessary to stimulate the economy, but I see no indication that this government has a plan, and as such, a deficit is one of the worst things they can do to themselves right now. At least running a surplus with no plan doesn’t impact our future generations or governments (as though we’ll see a regime change in my lifetime), but a deficit to to fiscal stupidity is just plain wasteful.

So here’s to tomorrow’s lacklustre budget, at least there’s $600 in the legislature’s backyard to go digging for.

There’s nothing like having no plan or excuse for running a deficit.