If this was not scary enough the budget numbers revealed that they would also have us $58B (yes Billion) in debt, with no plan to balance until 2024. This is just to balance folks, never mind any debt repayment. This cause our credit rating to drop which could cost us more in interest than the $2B per year it looks to already. This is by far not a conservative budget, but it's also entirely irresponsible.
I have listened to the regular fear mongering from the left with the fear mongering rhetoric that the only way conservatives could balance is to cut the front end staff. What a complete load of crap, although no worse than the B.S. claim that the right spouts about how they would balance the budget. Bottom line is we are spending $2900.00 per capita more than B.C. for the same services. This is where we need to recuperate from, however it can't be done at the flip of the switch.
The one consistent thing I have heard for years is they all would get us off the royalty roller coaster. There is certainly no time like the present, but Albertan's should benefit from the royalties. How do we do this? We implement a 6% HST and return half the royalty dollars to Albertans and the other half to pay off our existing debt and then into savings. Here is my 2017 budget that I believe would be responsible to present.
Now I know many of you don't see this as conservative, but it saves us from diving into $58B debt with no repayment plan. It will save the public sector from having to deal with huge austerity cuts in the future, especially if they work with Govt. to help bring cost in line. It will save us over $2B in interest costs. A responsible budget is what we should expect from conservatives, plunging generations into debt is not. This is a great starting point from which we can be economically stable while finding the $2900 more per person we pay for services than BC, we could save a whopping unbelievable total of $12.3B.....maybe eventually getting back to the lower taxed Alberta Advantage. Note: AB HST portion only comes to $5.8B
Unfortunately I have not saw a Government or Opposition party in our province with the guts to govern. Nor do I suspect we ever will.
