Opinion: The first hint that the government was swimming uncomfortably in cash came last month, but now budget surpluses are expected to add up to tens of billions of dollars.
Doug Ford’s Tories first got elected in 2018 promising to balance the books.“Promise made, promise kept,” the premier might have boasted in olden times.
To the contrary, Ford pointedly “put more money in your pocket” by cutting revenue sources — notably license plate fees — in a series of cynical, pre-election vote-buying giveaways that people lapped up. The government keeps shovelling $7 billion a year in subsidies to hydro ratepayers , once again pacifying public opinion.
The bigger challenge for Bethlenfalvy is to resist the temptation by his premier to keep cutting taxes or deliberately dialing down revenues. Absent a brutal recession, tax cuts would only undermine the revenue base required to invest in health care and long-term care while paying front-line workers a fair wage.