Broken promises

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2012 (5241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Read my lips: no new taxes.”

— George H. W. Bush during the 1988

Republican National Convention

Broken election promises are not the sole province of any one political party. The fact that politicias of all political stripes say what they need to in order to get elected, and then change their tune when in office, is as Conservative as it is New Democrat as it is Liberal.

Although the elder George Bush made the above pledge as part of his 1988 U.S. election platform, he would later raise taxes once he became president as a way to reduce the budget deficit as part of a 1990 budget compromise with Congressional Democrats. No doubt, Bush did not wish to raise taxes, but he was ultimately left no choice but to make such a compromise as the Democrats ran the House and the Senate.

In the 1992 election campaign that followed, Democrat nominee Bill Clinton consistently pointed to Bush’s words as proof that the American people couldn’t trust him, and Bush was limited to a single term in office as Clinton took the White House. Unfair perhaps, but all part of the reality of modern politics.

For remarkably similar reasons, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger has been taking some heat this week for comments he made during the 2011 fall election campaign.

As the Winnipeg Free Press reported on Thursday, the Progressive Conservatives dug up a partial transcript of a Selinger promise to not to raise taxes, made during a party leaders’ forum on radio on Sept. 12.

According to the transcript, the premier made the following statement: “Our plan is a five-year plan to ensure that we have future prosperity without any tax increases and we’ll deliver on that. We’re ahead of schedule right now.”

The recounting of Selinger’s promise by the Tories was made in the wake of Tuesday’s budget speech, in which Finance Minister Stan Struthers outlined an attempt to slay a massive spending deficit by hiking taxes and user fees.

The NDP boosted fees for land titles, birth, marriage and death certificates, announced that gas taxes would rise by 2.5 cents per litre, and upped tobacco taxes by about 2.5 cents per cigarette. The province also decided to expand the PST to spa treatments, pedicures, manicures and facials, haircuts (more than $50), hairstyling, tattooing and piercings — most of which will hit the purse strings of Manitoba women.

The increased taxes and levies are expected to raise more than $200 million per year.

Once the media were reminded of Selinger’s promise, both Tories and reporters smelled blood in the water.

“They broke the fundamental promise of the election campaign, which was not to raise taxes,” said Progressive Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen, who seized on the tax increases during question period.

And when several reporters attempted to question the premier about his promise on Wednesday, Selinger did his best to deflect the questions.

“We have broadened our tax base,” he said. “We acknowledge we’ve generated more revenues in Manitoba to be responsive to the needs that we had to address to protect front-line services and to rebuild infrastructure while keeping Manitoba affordable.”

This turn of events is not surprising in the least. As we have maintained for months now, if the province had any hope of reaching its goal of a balanced budget by 2014, it would have had to either raise taxes or wean itself off its addiction to other people’s money — or both.

The 2011 flood caused a great amount of havoc to the province’s budgeting process over the last two years, and we do have some sympathy for Selinger’s position.

However, Mr. Selinger has been caught in a broken promise. As of the last election, he surely must have known that the cost of the flood fight would be high.

And like former president Bush, he will now have to wear that uncomfortable truth, whether he likes it or not.