Budget should help Tories form another majority government
Posted Feb 10, 2012 8:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Alberta’s Finance Minister Ron Liepert will sell his economic vision of the province over the lunch hour Friday at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
Thursday afternoon, the Redford Tories tabled the 2012-2013 budget.
The document is being called a good news budget, because it contains no new taxes, no tax increases and no cuts to public services.
By dipping into the $7.4-billion sustainability fund, there is also more money for health, education, child care, seniors, social assistance and for the severely disabled.
Mount Royal University political scientist Keith Brownsey says the financial blueprint should help the Tories at the ballot box come Election Day, because it addresses the wants and needs of most Albertans.
University of Calgary economist Frank Atkins is a little disappointed in the budget, because it doesn’t solve the problem of over-spending.
Atkins says the budget is designed solely to get the Tories re-elected, not to get Alberta off the economic roller-coaster ride, produced by the boom and bust cycles of a resource-based economy.
The Wildrose Party will table its own alternative balanced budget Friday.
