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kevin taft asks: where did alberta’s money go?

Edmonton-Riverview MLA Kevin Taft wrote a interesting article this weekend in the Edmonton Journal. It is a detailed read, but Dr. Taft asks some very important questions about how and where our government has been spending pubic money over the past 20 years.

Public spending stayed flat as Alberta economy grew: From 1989 to 2008, economic pizza expanded, but who was eating it?

“Follow the money.” It’s a tried and true way to explain a lot of politics and government and, in recent months, I’ve been reminded why.

It started with a mystery and ended with an answer I hadn’t expected.

The mystery? If Alberta government spending on public health care is “out of control” and “skyrocketing” and “unsustainable,” as we are told, why do we have such crowded hospitals and such a shortage of doctors and nurses? If spending on public health care has climbed so much, where’s the real-life evidence?

Read the rest of the article.

3 replies on “kevin taft asks: where did alberta’s money go?”

I continue to be deeply concerned about the direction of our province. MLA’s give themselves extraordinary raises, exit packages – (what? you were FIRED if you weren’t re-elected!), while I bust my butt volunteering for the less fortunate, giving to Social agencies, Animal rescue agencies, and struggle with my fairly well-paying job to meet my OWN financial necessities.

I agree with Mr. Taft, and I can only hope there is progress with this issue coming to light. I worked for the Calgary Public School board for nearly a decade, and I have seen the sad state first hand of how our Province’s political engine can make a giant to-do about increased funding, repairs to crumbling old unhealthy buildings and new schools – the core community function in new neighbourhoods, but silently, crush any hope by not delivering on many of those promises.

I expect that our politicians that distribute our tax dollars may some day be accountable for promises and budgets. That if a project is announced – it comes from someone’s budget – even if that means cutbacks to MLA salaries to make the money available. If we were a business – we would have been bankrupt long ago.

Public services are why we have taxes. Why can’t we make government accountable for where the money goes?

Good question, I’d like to know what they did with all the money as well. When it’s rolling in so fast you can’t count it, anyone can run the province. Now we’re finding out just how underqualified the tories truely are. Enough is enough, time for them to go.

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