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Originally Posted by bizaro86
I work in oil and gas, finance is just an interest. I might make a career transition at some point.
I would of course stipulate that the economy has been bad, and that revenues are likely to increase. Oilsands projects are starting to reach payout, which will cause an increase to non-renewable resource revenues. I'd like to think the WRA is more nuanced than that, and that the idea is "we should only spend money we need to spend, and spend it smartly" rather than "we can't afford it." That's my opinion, but I'm not directly affiliated with the party in any way, so can only go by what I've read in the policy documents.
Ultimately, per capita government spending in Alberta is much higher than other provinces. Per capita program spending was $10,431 in 2009, compared to $7264 in Ontario and $9270 in Quebec.* Some of that difference is due to past success. Because we spend less on debt, we have more for other spending. I think we should be able to at least hold the line on spending, limiting it to population growth/inflation.
The Wild Rose party may go the way of other "protest" parties (Alberta Separatists, etc) or it may go the way of the federal Reform party. The next election is likely to be decisive on that score, imo.
* http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/file...icy/albsp2.pdf Numbers from 2009 were all I could find |
I'm not going to dispute the numbers and the per capita spending you quoted is probably right. But why shouldn't the government spend more per capita? We don't have the debt issues that those other provinces have, and we all know that we want more services.
I guess I can't really argue with the "spend what we need to spend and spend it smartly" tactic....except that it doesn't mean anything. Its just rhetoric. The only thing that I've read that shows any change was the alternative budget they released this spring, and frankly that was a joke.
If people had complaints about the PC budget (and they did) thats nothing compared to what the WRA was proposing. We're talking about spending that couldn't even keep up to the very small amount of inflation that we had/have. Its one thing to say that you're a fiscal conservative but entirely another to push todays problems further down the road because you want to score a few political points.