Budgets, at least at the federal and provincial governments levels have become as much about optics as numbers.
It is just as important to the government of the day to be able to shine the rosiest light on their budgets, as it is to come up with a good financial plan.
So the public relations machine every government has spends weeks pre-budget laying the framework of what is to come in the actual document.
And make no mistake government is very adept at creating the mood of the public, the mindset against which the actual budget document will be established.
The Saskatchewan Party did a rather nice job of that very thing leading up to the budget.
Take municipal revenue sharing as an example.
Yorkton Mayor Bob Maloney said from a municipal perspective there was a concern they could lose the sharing program to cuts.
The Mayor said he had felt in the end it would be maintained because it is a good program for municipalities.
“I was fairly confident revenue sharing would stay in place,” he said. “It took so much work to get in place I was fairly sure the government would leave it alone.”
But the pre-budget rhetoric which always swirls ahead of the document’s release was causing doubt.
“When the Premier says they were looking at revenue sharing it would have been silly not to be (worried),” he said (see related story Page A1 this issue).
And therein lies the politics of finance.
In good times governments toss up trial balloons to see which possible spending idea gets the most smiles from voters, a situation especially evident in a budget just ahead of an election.
In tighter financial times, as was the case going into the Saskatchewan budget as revenues from oil are being anticipated at $700 million short of what has been the recent norm, it’s a good political ploy to paint a pre-release picture of doom and gloom.
Certainly if you sat in a coffee shop in the city in recent weeks and listened to the tables talking the upcoming budget, we were in for one of more than simple belt tightening.
There were concerns of everything from gas hikes at the pumps to an increase in the provincial sales tax, which would have sent a shudder through the entire economy.
On one hand, it was prudent of government to hold everything it does to the light to determine whether it could be done in different ways which could improve the finances of the province. But that should be the case through every budget process. It is our money, and they should be sure of how it is both collected from us, and invested on our behalf.
That said, there is less need to talk either robust times, or dire circumstances, leading up to budget day.
In this year’s case the preamble was set to establish concern, and now that the budget is out, we collectively exhale with comments that ‘it could have been worse’.
It is easy to get lost in the euphoria of relief and not maybe look as closely, or as critically at the budget as we might, and that is not a good thing.
Governments should welcome budget scrutiny from those they represent, confident if voters look at the details, they will find a job well done.
In the case of the 2015 budget that may seem the case on the surface, but time will be needed to see if the confidence holds as details are reviewed.
