Since Alberta has just announced another amazing surplus – $7.4 billion in fact – I’d just like to say I am incredibly interested in just how this money gets spent.
Roughly 3 billion has been marked for infrastructure and education, so that leaves Albertans a decent chunk for both savings and other projects.
I propose another prosperity cheque – $600 is a nice round number …
I propose an annual prosperity cheque. I also propose paying off student loans for graduates of Alberta post-secondary schools who stay to work in Alberta for a determined period of time (five years, maybe).
Oh I agree w/ the student loan thing…
Man, that’s been a monkey on my back for years.
Would most of you prefer (1) a distribution of surplus revenue, or (2) letting the taxpayers keep more of their money in the first place?
Interesting sidenote on the infrastructure part…as my husband is a general contractor he has a different perspective. He commented that in their goal of infrastructure, they are also creating an inflated market. He figures the government is paying at least double, often triple what these projects are worth. Money well spent?
As long as I live in Alberta, I’ll pick the former. Given that we have no provincial sales tax, the lowest personal income tax, the highest basic and spousal exemptions in the country, the lowest gasoline tax, and the lowest unemployment rate, I believe we already keep more of our money in the first place.
…and as long as most of the surplus is from oil and gas revenues, we’d be foolish not to go with the former.
Nikki, it sounds like we need to be hiring out of province for these projects … as long as we are paying triple we might as well try to convince more people/businesses to move here.
I just paid off the last of my loans…so how about a $1000.00 annual cheque…YEEHAW!
K.
1000 does seem like a more round number than 600.
Well, 10,000 has more zeroes than 1,000, so, it’s even more of a round number.
But a 6 is more round than a 1.
So why not the best of both: 6,000