Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallex
Klein went way to far in his everything.
He went way to far in his cost cutting measures... then went way to far in his revenue cutting measures... then went way to far in his spending measures. Alberta's current fiscal situation is as ####ed up as it is as a downstream result of Klein's mismanagement.
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He did, but at the end of the day the things that he did leave. A debt free province, a rainy day fund of about 15 billion, were all pissed away by successive governments who didn't see a dollar that they didn't want to spend.
When he ran for premiere this province was in debt to the tune of about 20 billion dollars in 1993 dollars.
When he ran for election he ran on cutting public spending and he ran on rapid repayment of the provincial debt, and he won in a landslide so at least he was honest in his campaigning a pretty rare thing today.
But the repayment and the cuts, had to happen because this province was broke and interest payments were going to strangle any future growth.
The sad thing is that the tools that he left, no debt and a healthy rainy day fund couldn't be spent and wrecked quick enough by incompetence corruption and outright stupidity.
I'm not saying that austerity based politics will make a comeback here. This generation doesn't have the stomach for it. But spending cuts are going to have to happen, and the rapid growth of the public sector is going to have to stop, especially in the management and administrative areas.
Or our largest social program spending will be in the form of interest payments.