NDP’s deficit-funded election run

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/04/2015 (4076 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Selinger government is hoping this one just slides past voters. It’s the classic Friday late afternoon, slip it to a couple of reporters, announcement. Psst — we’re breaking a promise. Hey look! Sun’s out, have a nice weekend, folks.

So goes yet another reframe of the NDP administration’s long road back (2018? Someday? Ever?) to black. The target for balancing the budget, initially scheduled to be in surplus in 2015 and subsequently revised, will again be pushed back yet another year.

The NDP has offered a lot of excuses for why it can’t seem to hit its target for clearing the deficit off. Top culprit is the Harper government and its decision to reduce the annual increases to health transfers and the cuts to equalization payments to Manitoba. Then Statistics Canada played with Manitoba’s population numbers, cutting $100 million from federal funding.

And all along, and again Friday, the refrain has been that deficit-funding is necessary to save the critical services that Manitobans rely on. On Tuesday, there was Finance Minister Greg Dewar harping about the federal Tories and their fallacious balanced budget — slippery accounting that saw contingency money (savings account) used to write in a nominal surplus. And Manitoba will be out $9 million now that the Harper government has hiked the limits to tax free savings accounts and reduced the amount that pensioners must withdraw from retirement savings.

Mr. Dewar is still a relative newbie to the job, having gained his portfolio due to an insurrection last fall that cleared five ministers, including the serving finance minister and her immediate predecessor, from the cabinet.

But he has learned fast how to fudge facts for maximum political dividend. And, despite the evident hypocrisy for this government, he unloaded on the Harper budget without even blushing.

Let’s review the record: The Doer government, in which now premier Greg Selinger served as finance minister, saw record hauls in federal transfers until 2008. It scooped up and spent rising provincial revenues until the recession hit. And despite being stuffed with cash, there were years the NDP had to take money from the rainy day account to keep from going into deficit — in a period of huge economic growth.

It has chalked up successive deficits while continuing to blow past spending targets in departments such as health and family services. True, it has had to spend big on flood fighting and prevention, but it also funnelled revenue from the PST hike into tiny pet projects to curry favour in pockets of voters.

And, as with the federal Tories, the Selinger government has chosen to suck precious cash out of the treasury with boutique tax cuts of its own. It is eliminating education property taxes for homeowners 65 and older — a group most likely to vote. Based on the absurd premise the elderly have paid their debt to society, the tax rebate has sucked $20 million from the treasury so far.

So Mr. Dewar, spare Manitobans the righteous indignation about the Harper government’s tax plan.

His 11th-hour announcement Friday was no huge surprise — he has tempered his comments on hitting the balanced – budget target with disclaimers that it wouldn’t be done at the expense of key services. This, despite the fact the province’s own revenues are still rising. But the economy is fragile, Mr. Dewar intoned gravely. Heck, he claims even the business sector has warned the government not to rush to a surplus.

The federal Tories will parlay their success at balancing the budget into a campaign strategy for the fall election. But, just as obviously, the NDP will spin its decision to “protect vital services” into its campaign slogans for next spring’s election.

With the pesky deficit-elimination promise out of the way now, voters should buckle in for a blizzard of spending announcements, coming to a community centre or library near you. Deficit funded, of course.