VICTORIA – BC Liberal MLAs Mary Polak and Ralph Sultan have called out Adrian Dix over his and the NDP’s steady stream of lavish spending promises that would likely lead to drastic personal income tax increases should those promises be implemented.
When the NDP’s promises are added up, they total at least $6.8 billion in new annual spending, a 16 per cent increase over what was forecast in the second quarter fiscal update. To pay for Adrian Dix’s spending commitments, the NDP have only pledged an additional $1.6 billion in revenue – coming from hikes to both personal and corporate taxes. This leaves a revenue gap of nearly $5.2 billion. The NDP’s numbers do not add up.
“It’s easy to make promises, it’s harder to explain how you are going to pay for them,” said Polak, MLA for Langley. “As a government, we present three-year budget cycles and explain to British Columbians how decisions will affect them in the pocketbook and in the services they receive. Adrian Dix and the NDP are not letting taxpayers know the costs of their promises. Adrian Dix needs to come clean and let taxpayers know how he plans to find the money to fund his promises.”
To pay for his promises, Adrian Dix has three options – he can raise taxes more than he’s already promised to do, increase public debt, or cut existing services – or a combination of all three options.
“Dixonomics will be disastrous for British Columbia,” said Sultan, MLA for West Vancouver-Capilano and former Chief Economist for the Royal Bank of Canada. “Adrian Dix has simply not accounted for his spending commitments. The only way for him to pay for them all is to hike taxes or borrow money.”
“B.C. possesses a coveted triple-A credit and it is imperative we keep it intact. Last month, Standard and Poor’s downgraded their credit rating to nine countries in Europe, including G7 nations France and Italy. This has increased these countries’ costs of borrowing. We owe it to our children and grandchildren not to repeat Europe’s mistakes and bring in a bad case of Dixonomics,” Sultan added.
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