Clarity
Alberta’s Premier presented his perception of Alberta’s budget challenges a couple evenings ago. This afternoon the Province presented its budget. The government made no room for Albertans to definitively tell the government how to manage expenditures.
There is a way. Here are the steps:
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Divide each expenditure line item by the population of the province,
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Publish a list, on the internet, of the per capita expenditures of every provincial expenditure line item, and
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Invite every resident in the province to indicate what programs the resident approves of, in concept, and remits sufficient taxes to cover the per capita cost.
In a few days, the population would show the government it doesn’t have a revenue problem; it is out of tune with what the majority wants to pay for.
The government could then phase out the expenditures which are not supported by a majority. At the same time, it could develop a robust, secure, recurring information system to gather the information on expenditures the majority wants from the provincial government and for which the same majority is willing and capable of paying an equal cost.
It’s a strange definition of democracy to insist the majority are entitled to steal from the better off minority.