Liberals' plan may be unpopular, but who's got a viable alternative?

More than a year after the Liberal government unveiled its first budget, filled to the brim with tax and fee hikes, the hangover is so big that it is still the talk of the House of Assembly, even though this year's shiny new budget is still hot off the presses.

"What relief is there in the budget for hardworking Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are suffering at the extreme expense of the taxes and fees?" PC Leader Paul Davis asked in question period this week.

• N.L. avoids layoffs, tax hikes in stay-the-course budget

No one was happy with the 2016 budget, which raised more than 300 taxes and fees. Not the opposition, not the groups who protested in the streets, not the taxpayers stuck with a shrinking paycheque, not even the premier himself.

"We are not happy about that, I would say to you, Mr. Speaker. They are tough decisions," Dwight Ball told the house last year, soon after that budget came out.

The PCs and NDP have railed against the unpopular parts of the budget, they have yet to present any viable alternative.

The opposition has railed against the Liberals for a lack of ideas, but they have yet to come up with anything that would work better.

A non-confidence motion that went nowhere

The opposition is still so enraged by the fees this week they moved a motion of non-confidence in the government. Steve Kent argued the government should fall, saying, "This house condemns the government for maintaining all but one of the 300 tax and fee increases they imposed on people in last year's budget."

That exception was the extra provincial gas tax, which will be cut from an additional 16.5 cents to four cents by December. 

With a solid Liberal majority, the non-confidence motion was merely theatrics. The motion was easily defeated, and the government survived to tax another day.

It may be great politics, but when it comes to policy, the idea that government can simply wipe away unpopular taxes is a fantasy.

When government needs money, it really has only three ways to get it. It can raise taxes, borrow it from lenders, or cut what it spends.

So let's look at the alternatives.

This year the province has an $800-million hole in its budget, and the debt keeps climbing. We are far from out of the woods.

Since cutting more taxes only digs the hole deeper, is the opposition really suggesting that we run up more debt?

The PCs aren't willing to stand up and say that's what they would do, but that would be the effect.

At a time when the province already has the highest debt per person and the lowest credit rating, and polls show eight out of 10 people are concerned about the level of debt, adding debt isn't a strong option.

No appetite for deep cuts

So the only option left is to make deeper cuts to spending. It's an idea that Kent has endorsed before on Twitter. 

But when they get up to criticize the budget, the PC caucus does not call for any real cuts to workers. That can be a tough sell in a province where many people either work for the public service or have family who do. When the cuts do come, they oppose those, too.

Kent of course has his own ambitions. He's widely expected to run for the PC party leadership, and is hoping that voters in 2½ years will make him premier. It will take more than anger at the Liberals to do that.

The only way to roll back those fees and taxes would be to make large cuts. However, layoffs are something the PCs oppose.

Being against tax hikes, big deficits and layoffs is a great way to pander to voters, but it's simply not possible, not with the financial mess that the Liberals claim was created by the Tories.

Opposing taxes is easy, alternatives are hard

There's of course no obligation on the opposition to present a plan. Their job is to oppose and to question government's decisions.

However, if they're going to convince voters that the they could do a better job of running this province, they better start presenting real alternatives. 

The anger over the budget has given the PCs a small lead in the polls, but the fact that the Liberals are still nipping at their heels, despite a high government disapproval rating, shows that the lack of a realistic plan (and the lingering anger over the financial mess) has been holding them back.

Opposing unpopular taxes is easy, but simply telling the public they would undo everything they hate is not a genuine strategy.

Sitting back and being the only real alternative is a tried and true technique in Newfoundland and Labrador. It's how the Liberals came to power in 2015, after all, and it may still turn out to be good for the PC.

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But it won't be good for the province. The fiscal situation has presented one of the toughest challenges this province has faced, and what this province needs are new ideas to solve it, rather than just an attempt to score political points.

The party that presided over the policies that got us into a financial mess have not yet presented a path to get us out of it.