Sometimes I feel like I should be on some kind of perilious journey to east Edmonton, with a ring that I have to destory.
As always, Edmonton, Thursday is a busy news day.
We get SEE, Vue, The Gateway and the Edmonton Examiner headlines, on top of all our usuals. Today is a extra busy because I’ve picked up a few other stories on the radar.
Some of them are Alberta Budget related. (For more on the budget, so much more, go to the Budget Blowout.)
First there’s a take on Alberta’s governing Tories spending themselves out of deficit. Hey, that totally worked with my credit cards.
Over here you’ve got a warning to the Ontario government NOT to follow the Alberta lead of spending like crazy when times are tough.
Remember how the Alberta government projected a surplus in two years. Remember how they pinned all that on oil and energy prices pulling us through the dark days. Well, things just got real up in here.
Unrelated to the budget (even I have my limits) is this little nugget about the province’s 2009 farm crops. Seems we didn’t harvest as much the year before.
And they’re talking about the Oilers’ farm team down in Oklahoma. Just don’t let them know how things are currently going with the team…
Arena numbers don’t add up, figures reveal
Katz Group’s sense of entitlement won’t get arena built
Hard work ahead for school advocates (They’re trying to save schools slated for closure.)
Slot machine revenues not matching expectations (And you wonder why the provincial government has to think about budget cuts.)
Critics united in budget condemnation
City wants you to clean your sidewalks
Feds shortchanging province (…says health minister from government in need of lots of cash…)
City launches new hall of fame
Zoo hosts same-sex speed dating event (Our zoo. In Edmonton. How great is that?!)
City goes online for LRT input
Province adds 100 new cops, 35 for Edmonton
NAIT LRT extension could cost $1. billion (I’d say it’s worth every penny.)
Caution urged on Rossdale demolition
Give Katz Group vision a chance: Mayor (OK…)
Cuts to disability funding prompt Legislature protest
Bissell Centre birthday (I’m going to say it…I’m not exactly happy the Bissell Centre is 100 years old. It’s a great service but this means we haven’t figured out how to keep people off the streets for 100 years.)
Budget: Through the looking glass
And for Valentine’s Day: Sweet Lollapalooza: Worldly focus
Budget keeps the big boys happy
Experts weigh province’s nuclear prospects (Which way we go with energy generation will be a defining issue of the 20-teens.)
Tuition advocacy campaign begins
Student funding takes hit in provincial budget (There are always student loans.)
U of A shatters Guinness dodgeball record (Wait, if this is what our provincial tax dollars are going toward…)
Former Albertan hurtin’ for his hometown (The Rural Alberta Advantage is back!)
And just in case you were going to take the LRT this weekend, you should about the LRT Service Disruptions February 13 and 14.
But I don't want to go, Mr. Frodo.
The Alberta government is not “spending like crazy”. They’ve cut millions from social programs.
Yes, they’re cutting too.
But since they’re real problem lies, and has for years, in their inability to save or budget for programs that are important (like health and disability and education items they are currently trimming) the spending now is what’s setting us up for even more cuts in a few years if oil doesn’t skyrocket.
It’s doubly disappointing when health, education and social programs took a beating in the 90s for the sake of paying off the debt. They needed to put the money back into those things before simply throwing money at the health and education departments with no accountability for the actual programming.
Nice LOR reference. I like it!
The government should just start pumping money into VLTs. Literally. Like, go down to Hawkeye’s one afternoon with $3 Billion in loonies. If they come out ahead, then everyone wins! If they lose money, it just goes back into government coffers anyway…
“spending now is what’s setting us up for even more cuts in a few years if oil doesn’t skyrocket.”
I think the “livin’ on a prayer” oil price projections are not looking at increasing revenue through taxes, corporate or personal, or increasing royalty rates are what’s setting us up to fail, not our current spending levels which as you point out are making up for years of cuts and population increases.
I think hoping for oil prices to rise is about the worst budget planning ever. You might as well just gamble, as Derjis pointed out. (I wish we had a cartoonist to draw these things up like in the newspapers.)
The flat tax rate could go and you’d instantly find more money from the higher brackets. Heck, with the right (and still fair) formula you could exempt incomes up to $30,000 and I bet you’d still have more than you get now with the flat rate.
Much like the “slaying of the debt” the flat tax rate looks good on paper but won’t help you out when the money dries up.
While I can see how my pointing out the spending makes me come off like some super small-c financial conservative *cough* Canadian Taxpayers Federation *cough* I’m more concerned by the fact they just throw money into “health” and “education” without really thinking about where it’s going, or how it will be used. I mean, most of the health increase was just to pay off Alberta Health Services’ debt. Put that cash into actual programs and social funding and student grants, not loans, and we’d be getting somewhere.
Governing party for 4 decades eh…I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
It’s just that having read and talked to you before i know you’re not a small c conservative at all, so I wanted to know where the comments were coming from. So, I agree with you, they just threw money into health and then bragged about defending social programs.
I really liked Archie McClean on this when he called it a Rorschach test – you really can read whatever you want into this budget if you look close enough. What you can’t mislabel is the hope they continue to place in oil industry.
uh. so we agree.