YORKTON - Have you noticed that provincial debt and deficit is a bad thing – something that must be addressed – unless, of course, a provincial election is on the near horizon.
Once an election is pending then going deeper into debt always seems just fine as ruling parties tend to use voters’ tax dollars to not exactly buy votes, but certainly to nudge voters in a certain direction by pointing at all the good things they are investing in.
You could certainly draw such cynical conclusions from the recent Saskatchewan Party provincial budget which saw a significant deficit, which of course only adds to the lingering debt which already exists.
To be fair the Saskatchewan Party isn’t tilling new ground with pre-election spending, but then again they didn’t ascend above the norm in this area either.
What is more interesting is that the Saskatchewan Party, now years into its mandate – they were first elected in 2007 – are still struggling with some basic things.
To start with running balanced budgets are largely hit-and-miss efforts with the party. In some cases, their revenue forecasting through the years has been woeful, and in other times, like their most recent issue, spending is a good thing to keep voters happy on the eve of a vote. At least in the latter case, the government can blame the party system for a long-held tradition of pre-election spending.
The question though is when will somebody figure out how to put the brakes on spending before the common voter is flat-busted broke?
Municipal water and sewer costs rise, and so do property taxes.
In general, utilities trend higher too.
And while the provincial budget might not include huge tax hikes, there is a cost to be paid servicing deficits and debt and that money comes out of taxpayers’ pockets.
Certainly, it looks good when health and education spending increase because both are obviously critical, but even in such important areas spending has to be finite.
When you add debt servicing to health and education spending the lion’s share of spending is covered, meaning the rest of the things the province needs to help finance have limited dollars.
And, the situation gets tighter each year.
The answer is obviously to come up with some truly innovative ways to do things at a lower cost, or to make some very hard, and undoubtedly unpopular decisions in what we as a province can afford.
This is not a new suggestion, just one governments avoid because re-election is always paramount – even more important than doing what would be best for Saskatchewan’s future.
