It's really interesting. The budget has been out for a couple of days and the only thing we've heard from the Wildrose supporters here is that its "bad". No specific examples, no actual factual points on anything, its just not good. Allowing the CTF into the lock-up really showed its worth as well....wait, what did he say again? Right, basically nothing that he didn't say prior to the budgets release and certainly nothing off any great value.
I have some definite misgivings with what the government has done in this budget. The cuts to seniors and the fact that they've targeted them and post-secondary education ahead of the corporate welfare programs (outlined in an excellent manner in the Wildrose plan) is atrocious! I am definitely sad to see things like the Community Spirit Grant be eliminated. I realise that this is probably an unknown to a lot of people, but basically those grants are given to nonprofits who use them to better our communities; you have to apply, but they gave community groups a chance to get a little bit of money to do some pretty important things. I am not 100% sure, but I think the funds came from lottery revenue, and in all honesty that money should be redistributed.
What I am most displeased about though is that we have a government with a huge majority and they are too scared to use any political capital to do the right thing. While I applaud them for saying they'll save $5B in resource revenue in coming years, I want that somewhat locked away so it can't be used for pet projects and Dani-dollars, Ralph-bucks or whatever stupid election buying scheme these politicians come up with next! More importantly, Redford and the PC's have a one-time chance to reconfigure our revenue system. Implement a pure consumption tax and eliminate or deeply slash our income taxes. They can do this and its painfully obvious that its the right thing to do; they could implement it, and have nearly three full years to sell it before the next election...but they're too scared.
|