Mandryk: Wall’s legacy may now be growing debt – Regina Leader-Post

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.

Notwithstanding the near billion-dollar tax grab in Wednesdays budget, tax decreases will still be Premier Brad Walls legacy.

Sure, hes now the guy that hiked the provincial sales tax to six per cent and broadened it to include restaurant meals, kids clothes, junk food and construction costs. That will be the case for the remainder of the term, because his Saskatchewan Party government needs the revenue these tax increases generate.

But Walls decade-long dogged determination to keep taxes low has already solidified the Saskatchewan premiers legacy of keeping taxes low.

For example, Wednesdays 2017-18 budget illustrates that the $4,510 in annual provincial taxes an average family of fourearning $75,000pays ($2,483 in income tax, $1,727 in sales tax and about $300 in gas tax) remains second-lowest to an Alberta family ($2,766, because there is no sales tax). But its a solid second place, $1,500 less than third-place Ontario, $2,000 less than in B.C. and roughly half anywhere else.

Interestingly, even after Wednesdays tax hammering, that average $75,000-a-year Saskatchewan family is still paying $2,387 or 34.7 per cent less than the $6,887 it would have shelled out in 2006-07, whichwas the last year of the NDP government. In 2006-07, Saskatchewanwas fourth-lowest in the nation and only $1,500 to $2,000 less than than the high-taxed Atlantic provinces.

Moreover, Walls pursuit of better revenue funding for municipalities means we fare much better on our property taxes. And contrary to popular myth, those in Saskatchewans lower income $25,000-a-year and $50,000-a-year annual income brackets have done every bit as well or even better.

Finally, everyone knows corporations in this province have done very well under Wall including in this 2017-18 budget that decreases the corporate tax rate to 11 per cent by 2019 from 12 per cent.

Wall whose 52-per-cent approval rating remains the best among Canadian premiers can be comforted in the knowledge that his legacy as a tax-cutting premier will remain so for as long as he chooses to sit in the chair.

However, tax cuts were not the only governance legacy Wall has hoped to leave behind.

Remember those not-so-long-ago days when Brad Wall talked of Saskatchewan one day being debt-free?

That will not happen under Wall. In fact, because of Wall, it will likely never happen.

Of course, being debt-free was always an unrealistic pipe dream for every jurisdiction even Alberta, which briefly achieved that status until the volatilities of a resource-based economy again hit home. Moreover, lets acknowledge virtually every province has a larger per-capita debtthan we do here in Saskatchewan.

That said, theres little doubt Wall once believed ridding Saskatchewan of debt would be his way of rewriting the political narrative. Wall believed he would disprove the notion that conservative governments (i.e. the billion-dollar-a-year deficits of the Grant Devine Progressive Conservatives that pushed Saskatchewan debt to until now record levels) have been all about debt.

Spelled out in a bold graph on page 47 of Walls Meeting the Challenge 2017-18 budget is why that wont happen.

The public debt chart in the 2017-18 budgets borrowing and debt section shows Walls immediate success. His Sask. Party governments initial $10.5-billion Saskatchewan debt in 2008 quickly dropped to a low of $7.9 billion in 2009, including only $200 million in debt of government service organizations. The latter includes some of the interest we pay on borrowing for past deficit budgets going back to the Devine years that we still must pay off before we pay a single teacher or nurse or pave an inch of highway.

Well, having now presented six deficit budgets in 10 years, Wall sees Saskatchewan public debt rise to $16.1 billion by the end of 2017,surpassing its previous high in the early years of the Roy Romanow NDP government before the books were re-balanced. That includes $2.3 billion in debt of government service organizations after this years $1.3-billion deficit.

By the end of 2018 after the 2017-18 budgets $685-million deficit, Saskatchewan will have $18.2 billion in public debt (including $3.3-billion in government service organizations debt).

With two more deficit budgets now scheduled, this province will have a record $22.8 billion in debt by 2021 $6.1 billion for service organizations.

That cements debt as one of Walls legacies.

Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post. He can be reached at mmandryk@postmedia.com

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Mandryk: Wall's legacy may now be growing debt - Regina Leader-Post