Afraid to make the argument

"The inference was that there was no fat to be found in the system and that every penny was being wisely spent. In Tuesday’s budget, every department gets a boost in expenditures." 

The Herald raises a straw man argument here, a claim that of course the government isn't even making but of course the writers don't follow through with their unstated thesis, that the healthcare, education and infrastructure Albertans depend on are bloated, coddled and wasteful rather than falling apart and straining at every seam.

This is not an argument that can survive an encounter with the facts on the ground that their readership knows quite well.

Whenever the usual suspects bleat about how Alberta's social spending is so much higher than other provinces they are always playing the same sleazy little accounting trick of pegging the date range they are making that comparison to AFTER the departure of Klein. Factor the lost decade in and suddenly we are at the bottom of the spending pack.

Cleaning up after an irresponsible vandal is usually expensive.