Yes, the B.C. Liberals Budget 2012 is an austerity budget, but more than that, it is a pre-election budget if there ever was one.
Premier Christy Clark, who has been incredibly quiet through the Feb. 21 budget announcement process, is drawing the lines of the battlefield on which the 2013 provincial election will be fought.
Premier Clark appears to be content to let Finance Minister Kevin Falcon take any flak that may come about due to the hold-the-line on spending with two per cent increases likely to be allowed for health, education and social services for the next three years.
That won’t cover the cost of inflation, so we can expect some major budget slashing as the austerity plan trickles down into the trenches where the work is actually done.
Meanwhile, we aren’t hearing much from NDP Leader Adrian Dix either, as it appears he prefers to let his lieutenants voice their disapproval of Budget 2012.
It’s like the two of them are back in school trying to win the prom king and queen popularity titles.
We believe the bottom line in this budget is the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and its dismantling, following British Columbians referendum decision to dump the unpopular tax.
We predict the B.C. Liberals will continue to shift the blame for the austerity budget on the lack of understanding of the great unwashed that killed the HST last August.
The reality, of course, is the B.C. Liberals foisted it on us and then premier Gordon Campbell and current Premier Clark frittered away the $1.6 billion federal transition funding to prop up the government’s bottom line, and in Clark’s case, boost her personal popularity.
As they prepare for the 2013 budget/election, the B.C. Liberals will pat themselves on the back for their fiscal prudence and their ability to pay down the deficit they created in the first place.
They’ll do that with the multi-million-dollar excess in annual HST revenue they’re grabbing out of our pockets, even though we were told it would be revenue neutral.
Leading up to the election call, they will spend a lot of our money trying to convince us to avoid the “fiscal irresponsibility” of the NDP, and the upstart BC Conservatives, in general.
Meanwhile, some important questions linger.
Will our students suffer and be ill prepared for the future; will social services not be able to keep up with B.C.’s unchecked proverty; and will the health-care nightmare continue?
The B.C. Liberals have a little more than a year to turn it around; it will be interesting.