Big cuts or broken promises: No matter who wins the election, tough decisions are ahead
Despite a bleak financial picture, parties offering 'disastrously irresponsible' tax cuts, prof says
It's become the most toxic topic of the provincial election, but it's time to talk about cuts.
The leaders want you to think you can have it all — lower taxes, more spending and a balanced budget. But hidden deep within their plans is the truth that this can only happen if they cut and cut big, or if they walk away from their promises.
For Russell Williams, head of the political science department at Memorial University in St. John's, it comes down to avoiding the truth.
"The fact that they have to do it in a competitive environment where the other party is willing to tell fantasy stories means that neither the Conservatives or Liberals have been overly interested in telling the people of Newfoundland how things really are," he said.
The budget lays it out in plain numbers. The Liberals and PCs all insist they'll return the finances to surplus by 2022, but to do that, spending has to be cut by $600 million.
To do that, the government will need to close more than a few libraries (if you recall, the Dwight Ball government had briefly planned to shut down more than half of its community libraries in 2015, in order to save about $1 million).
To save that kind of money, you would — for instance — have to close both the Corner Brook and Gander hospitals, and then shut down Memorial University, and even then you would still need to find another $20 million to cut.
Talk of cuts avoided on campaign trail
But any candidate who even mentioned cuts immediately got cut down, like PC Leader Ches Crosbie's general comment early in the campaign. He said health spending might be a good place to start.
The Liberals wasted no time posting this video to social media.
The words were barely out of his mouth before he backtracked from the comment, and it's been the focus of Liberal attack ads ever since.
The leaders don't want to tell us the truth, but that reaction shows the voters don't want to hear it.
Neither party really wants to take serious ownership over the financial challenges that the province faces.- Russell Williams
Many of us are still clinging to the false hope that the good-time promises of the Danny Williams era will come true: that Newfoundland and Labrador is a true have province, that taxes can go down as spending goes up.
And politicians are still peddling that message today. The parties have been falling over each other to offer up more spending and lower taxes.
The PC plan would cost an extra $250 million in their first year alone, as they plan to bring in new programs like cheap child care, while cutting taxes on insurance.
Wrong conversations
Russell Williams says we're having the wrong conversations, and the province cannot afford the sort of tax cuts that both of the major parties have been promising.
"Tax cuts at this point in time are disastrously irresponsible for this province," he said in an interview.
"The fact that they basically agree on where taxes should be cut — and they're arguing a little bit about the timing — just shows the extent to which neither party really wants to take serious ownership over the financial challenges that the province faces."
Williams insists there's no way to make the cuts needed, that even just keeping spending from rising is a tough job when many costs go up year after year.
"I don't think those targets can be met," he said.
If the electorate doesn't seem too worried about deficits, the bond markets are.
The banks lending Newfoundland and Labrador the billions of dollars it needs to keep services running want to know the province has a plan to one day pay them back.
Walking away from a balanced budget would mean higher interest rates, sending debt servicing costs even higher.
But we can't have it all — low taxes, new spending and a balanced budget.
The leaders may not want to admit this now but one day they'll have to.
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