Gut social programs, ruin lives, cripple the economy by cutting spending during a recession which nobody sane since Woodrow Wilson has thought was a good idea - anything rather than making the rich and big corporations contribute even a little more to the social contract. Thank God we got rid of him.
Klein, speaking in Calgary at a security conference, said he's philosophically opposed to deficits, noting his government introduced a provincial law banning fiscal shortfalls.
The Stelmach government amended that law this spring, as it forecast a $4.71-billion deficit in its $36.4-billion budget. The province plans to drain its emergency savings to pay for four straight years of expected shortfalls, totalling $10.3 billion.
While stating he doesn't tend to comment on Premier Ed Stelmach's performance, Klein offered his successor advice on dealing with a steep plunge in resource revenues: Cut government services.
"Ten per cent or five per cent . . . across the board. Everything," the former premier told reporters after his speech.
At the start of Klein's 14-year tenure as premier, he drastically reduced government spending and public sector jobs to slay a$23-billion debt. The province declared itself debt-free in 2004.
"We shrunk government from 30,000 to 20,000 employees. We rolled back salaries by five per cent. We got rid of our pension plans, so there are a lot of things that can be done," Klein said.
No comments:
Post a Comment