Quote:
Originally Posted by psicodude
^ A good post, but you failed to provide any real solutions. Simply "spending what you can afford" is not good enough and will result in you losing the next election (classrooms with 50 kids and 12 hour average emergency wait times will do that to a government).
I think borrowing to address the most dire needs is a good thing, but it's all about balance and making the tough decisions regarding what is actually a "need" and what is a "want that will get us re-elected". Unfortunately, the larger issue here is that average Joe doesn't care about debt loads, he just wants his own life to be as comfortable as possible and will vote for whoever he feels will make that happen....regardless of how it gets done.
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Absolutely correct. I must concede I really don't have a solution to this extremely complex social issue/problem. I just am arguing against something which appears to almost certainly
not be the solution.
I would concede that there are times to engage in deficit financing. The 2008/09 economic crisis was an example. However, Alberta was in a position to weather it much better. But we
overspent. Significantly. Now things are in growth and here we are in Alberta continuing to run deficits. A PC government will not get us out of deficit any time soon relying on their latest budget. It is based on extremely dubious projections about the growth in the economy, the price of oil and in particular the price of natural gas. You can only use economic downturn as an excuse for deficits for so long in a Province as advantaged as Alberta.
You are also correct that very few governments ever think beyond the current term and that is a major fault. Even Klein, with his apparent view to the future of government spending was likely more motivated by the sentiment across Western Canada (and even Ont.) in the 90s that we had to cut to survive. He was nothing if not politically astute.
What do we do? Not sure. But what we don't do is deficit finance for the next 10 years until we have trouble affording much more than the most marginal of programs.