Better Balanced Budget

Yep that was C-48 the Federal Budget amendment brought in by the NDP last June. And it is the budget the NDP in Alberta is proposing as an alternative to the Klein Stay The Course Budget.Which is par for the course, seeing as King Ralph likes to make spending announcements between budgets, without consulting his cabinet or the Legislature. Which is why he sticking around for another year and a half.

Ordinary Albertans will get only minor relief from the budget. Exemption levels for personal, spousal and dependent deductions will be increased by $100, expected to save taxpayers affected by the change an average of $35 a year.Businesses will save a total of $300 million from a reduction in the corporate income tax rate to 10 per cent from 11.5 per cent.

The New Democrats tabled their own budget to reporters yesterday, one that pledged $1.5 billion from adjusted oil and gas royalties for a new green fund to help Albertans use energy more efficiently.

It also called for the establishment of a new pharmaceutical savings agency the party claims would save the province $75 million in its first year.

The NDP said they would reduce health-care wait times in the public system, scrap health-care premiums, reduce the education portion of municipal property taxes and establish kindergarten and junior kindergarten in Alberta schools.

They said they would also implement the auditor general's recommendations to improve the quality of long-term care in the province.

Mason said his party would kill the new ministry of restructuring and government efficiency, saving taxpayers $30 million annually.

"It's almost an oxymoron," he said. "It is itself a prime example of waste."

The NDP would also cut back the province's $14 million public affairs bureau, phase out private school funding, scrap the royalty tax credit, eliminate a $45 million horse racing subsidy and put the brakes on cuts to corporate taxes, Mason said.

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