Quote:
Originally Posted by kn
I decided to spend some time outlining what the four major parties have been promising us thus far. My sources were strictly their websites. This is not "platform" information, just what has been promised or brought to attention via press releases. I was surprised at some of the promises that have not garnered any media attention.
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I want to point out some really bad economic policies.
Wildrose
- Cap increases in annual government spending to rate of inflation plus population growth
- Reinstate mandatory balanced-budget legislation that the PCs repealed in 2009
Balanced budget legislation is a terrible idea: governments should run deficits in slow economic periods to stimulate the economy and get required infrastructure at lower prices than at cycle peaks when costs are higher. Ironic, but perpetually balanced budgets actually lead to higher spending for a given service level. Nobody benefits from that.
Liberals
- Post Secondary Heritage Fund to phase out tuition by 2025
This only makes sense if 100% of the benefit of educating a student goes to the province, and if it were, there would be no reason to go to school. Make education available through loans, not grants. One of the best ways to get people to waste something is to make it free.
NDP
- Require all new oilsands development to have plans for upgrading in Alberta
Our competitive advantage in extraction is stronger than our competitive advantage in upgrading. Therefore, our economy should specialize in extraction and any attempt to force it away from that
will result in a net loss. This is classic old-school protectionism that doesn't work - it works at an individual level but when one jurisdiction does it others follow and then everyone loses their efficiency through specilization. That's why we have free trade agreements. This policy would definitely make it more difficult for the federal government to negociate new agreements and might even contravene some of the agreements we already have.
You'll notice that I left out the PCs. While their platform as stated in kn's post didn't have anything as bad as the other three, they have been guilty of the same thing that Wildrose proposes to do: underspending when the economy is bad and overspending when the ecomony is good. While it's difficult to say for sure if any particular element of their platform is worth it or not (though I rather dislike tax credits), the budget appears to be following that pattern.