Tuesday, April 7, 2009 12:17 PM
Another one bites the dust
Adam Radwanski
From today's Edmonton Journal:
Alberta's Conservative government will forecast its first deficit budget in 16 years today, but will first have to introduce legislation to keep from breaking its own law.
Finance Minister Iris Evans said Monday her government will table the Fiscal Responsibility Amendment Act before she rises to deliver what many expect will be a grim budget.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act, brought in by the Ralph Klein government, made it illegal for Alberta to run deficits, but it has always been scorned by critics who predicted it would be amended at the first sign of trouble.
What a shock that those critics were right - just like they were in Ontario, British Columbia, and all the other provinces where the exact same thing happened.
I've been on this kick before, but it's worth repeating: Balanced-budget legislation was an embarrassing political fad that should never, ever be repeated.
On occasion, governments will run deficits. They shouldn't become a permanent part of the landscape, as they had prior to the mid-'90s, but they're perfectly defensible during bad times like the current ones.
To pretend that they're never going to happen is to lie to voters in order to score short-term political points. And it forces future governments - or the same governments - to be seen to rewrite laws in order not to break them.
If you want to raise the level of public cynicism when it comes to governments and the people who run them, it's hard to think of a better way.
