The Irresponsible NDP Budget 2010

There can be no better word to describe the recent NDP budget than "irresponsible." The budget for this year (2010-1011) projects a deficit of more than $500 million. The budget for next year (2011-1012) predicts a budget deficit of more than $500 million.

Normally, one starts by looking at the year just ended (2009-1010) and asks - what is the structural deficit coming out of the present year - this is the deficit after taking away one time expenditures and taking into account reasonable fiscal management. Now, on March 23rd, in the Question Period before this year's budget was delivered, when I asked Premier Greg Selinger why his budget for 2009-2010 had gone so far off track from his original projections he blamed the very large one time expenditures for the H1N1 flu and the Flood last year. If we take away these expenditures from the deficit in 2009-2010, and allow for reasonable fiscal management, the structural deficit coming out of 2009-2010 should be in the range of $200 - $300 million. It should be reasonable to expect this year's (2010-2011) deficit to be held to about $200 million instead of ballooning to the projected $537 million deficit (in core government operations). The NDP's projected $537 million deficit is just irresponsible.

As I pointed out previously see my blog post of March 23rd, the NDP have never yet, in ten years, been able to stay within the expenditure projections they have made in their budget. If they over spend this year, after starting with a projected $537 million deficit, we could be in worse trouble than this.