In his 1988 budget speech, then Alberta finance minister Dick Johnston proclaimed the “government’s fiscal strategy of providing major stimulus worked.”
He said a “solid recovery” had begun and forecast a return to balanced books three years out. If that sounds familiar, it’s because in budget 2011, Alberta's newest finance minister, Lloyd Snelgrove, has channelled the 1980s-era minister: “We had a plan that got us through the recession and we will stick to it as government revenue now begins to recover,” said Snelgrove in his budget speech. He also forecasts a balanced budget three years out.
Alberta’s politicians have a habit of budgeting based on the assumption that boom-time revenues are permanent. They also have the tendency to not recognize overspending has created structural deficits. For example, in 1981-82, real program spending was $9,183 per capita; that jumped to $11,383 by 1985-86. That set Alberta up for massive deficits once resource revenues declined.
Similarly, after ratcheting back real per-capita program spending later in the 1990s (it hit a low of $6,434 in 1996-97), such spending rose in most of the following years to reach $10,134 by 2008-09. Akin to the 1980s, such dramatic increases in program spending set the province up for red ink once resource revenues moderated.
Thus, in addition to billions in red ink in the past two fiscal years, Alberta’s government forecasts another $8.9 billion in deficits between the year just ending and the targeted surplus in 2013-14.
But there are potential pitfalls for Snelgrove’s three-year estimate, just as there were in the late 1980s for another finance minister. For one thing, the province assumes marginal increases in program spending over the next three years to $40.1 billion in 2013-14 from a forecast $38.4 billion in 2010-11. But containing spending is generally not something the Alberta government has been adept at recently.
Missing from budget 2011 was the question of how to balance the books if revenues are less than expected. Wages, benefits and salaries are the largest part of any government’s budget). If Alberta is to balance the budget any time soon, such expenses must be part of any balanced budget program. That and other options should be on the table.
While history is not guaranteed to repeat itself, the last time Alberta started to run deficits, the early predictions of soon-to-be-balanced books were continually off. Instead, the province ended up in red ink for nine consecutive years.
In Alberta's newest deficit era, we’re now looking at a minimum of five years.
Mark Milke is the director of the Alberta office of the Fraser Institute.
