The Wildrose wasn't the only party with a plan to save money, but maybe the Liberals don't count as an option for most Albertans!
Look, my characterization of the financial stance for the Wildrose is pretty simple. I know that they plan to cut, I fully acknowledge that. I just have no idea where they plan to cut and how those cuts will bring the budget into balance.
I also better come right out and say that I don't agree with everything that Mintz has to say. Truth be told I found myself agreeing with what he said on Saturday a lot more than I would've expected! He used the word moderate, so that's what I used in describing his statement (which he has had reprinted in the Herald today in a little more detail). He says that he thinks there is a spending issue there, but is also quite clear with the VAT being a better method to receive money for the province than our current system.
I know that politically its far better for opponents to criticize this as a way to increase revenue, but clearly that isn't what Mintz is talking about here. This proposal wasn't brought forward as a "new" tax. Its a different tax in place of the aforementioned income taxes and corporate taxes. You'll note that he says we could lower both corporate and personal taxes here, or we could increase the exemption by an enormous amount.
Are these taxes regressive? They can be. We already have GST rebates though and its not a big deal. Frankly we could treat this in the exact same manner and as and aside get a few billion from the federal government for the HST!
And yes, I don't want to discuss semantics. I have no idea what moderate means in this context, but I know that it doesn't mean a quarter or third of the budget, at least to me!
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