Realistically what's needed is a voter conversation about what services and the quality of said services the public demands in exchange for their taxes and/or Oil and Gas Revenues. The PCs since Redford's nomination as PC party leader bring up a great point that we need to wein ourselves off of using Oil and Gas revenue in the budget and rather should be saving it, which would ultimately mean higher taxes in some form.
If the provincial treasury were a corporate treasury or a family budget I would believe this type of dicipline would be possible. That all said I just do not believe or trust the institution of government in this province to do this. Mark my words, if Redford goes down this road what will happen is simply your taxes will be higher (income, sin taxes, and maybe a sales tax), the civil service will be more bloated with spending and we still won't be saving much more in the Heritage fund from Oil and Gas revenues regardless of the best of intentions. Reason being is that the percieved needs are really bottomless, and when a center party tries to be all things to all people the Heritage fund will ultimately be the one sacrificed.
The only way to provide incentive for the government to more efficiently manage money is to give them less of it in the first place.
|