money fannedout

Manitobans should expect to see more tax and fee increases included in the NDP's 2013 budget. That from Progressive Conservative Finance Critic Myrna Driedger who feels the Selinger government's spend-happy ways are becoming a high tax problem for Manitoba families.

What makes Driedger believe more hikes are on the way? She believes a comment made by Premier Greg Selinger at the end of December alludes to what's to come. The Premier was quoted as saying, "We have also looked at areas where we can reasonably ask for additional revenue because they are already taxed for example through the Federal Government."

"Throughout this past Fall session we asked them almost everyday 'Will you bring in new taxes?', and they basically for a three week period weren't giving us an absolute no answer," says Driedger. "Then at the end of the year Premier Greg Selinger basically indicated the door is wide open to looking at anything, and that anything probably means we are looking at more taxes."

According to the PC's the NDP brought in $184 million in new taxes in last year's budget, much of which Driedger says came from adding the PST to new products and services. The Tory's also say the NDP brought in $114 million in fee increases.

Driedger says the NDP government has a twelve year old spending problem, and now Manitoba residents are paying the price.

"When they inherited the government in 1999 Manitobans had worked really had at that point to get rid of the deficit, there was no deficit in Manitoba in 1999," says Driedger. "In this last year, Manitobans in a twelve year period, saw the NDP crank up that deficit to almost a billion dollars, and they also doubled the debt in just twelve years."

Driedger feels the NDP has taken us down the wrong path, and we are now paying for it. "We are the highest taxed province west of the Maritimes, and this is hurting the province, this is hurting our kids in the future, this is hurting taxpayers now."

She notes it's time for the Selinger government to conduct a formal spending review. "They don't seem to want to do a formal spending review to find out what they could do to try to better manage their spending," says Driedger. "They are getting the highest amount of transfer payments this province has ever seen from the Federal government, so it's not like they don't have money coming in. The transfer payments are high, their own sources of revenue are good, and yet what we are seeing them do is just keep spending way more than what they are bringing in, so they've got a spending problem and it's been twelve years of this."