Quote:
Originally Posted by GP_Matt
Except that I don't buy a new house every year. The same way, the province doesn't build 25 years worth of infrastructure in the first year and do nothing for the next 25.
They build something every year so if they borrow this year, next year they have to pay down the original amount and borrow more for that years project. It is an endless cycle that we finally broke out of.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
For your family, you only need one house.
The province of Alberta has a huge amount of infrastructure. If it has an average 50 year life, you should be replacing 2% of it every year. So you renovate one hospital per year, as opposed to borrowing money to renovate them all this year.
If we have to borrow money to pay for this year's one hospital renovation, then we're pushing this year's obligation into the future.
The analogy of a mortgage to buy a house is extremely poor, imo.
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Sure but how many hospitals have we built in the last decade in Alberta? Not one a year? We certainly don't build brand new highways once a year and a project like the twinning of highway 63 is a one-time event.
We end up having to do enormous infrastructure spends in part because of the binge and purge nature of our budgeting though. The most glaring example is the situation with the new South Calgary Health Campus; Klein blew up the General Hospital and literally within weeks beagn speaking about the need for another hospital.