CTF's Debt Clock highlights growing provincial debt in advance of Sask budget

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation brought the Debt Clock to the Saskatchewan Legislature today to call on Premier Scott Moe to balance the budget.The numbers were whirring quickly with a second-by-second update. The amount is calculated with the last known debt amount as a reference point with upward calculations based on the projected deficit for the fiscal year according to the most recent fiscal update.The province expected a billion-dollar surplus when it made its budget a year ago, but last November, the revised projection fell to a $250 million deficit. Although tax revenues were above expectations, resource revenues were down $717 million, mostly due to a fall in potash prices and production. Drought caused crop insurance claims to rise $853 million above expectations, while wildfire evacuation costs came in at $91.4 million.The government last balanced the budget in 2022-23. The government has not balanced multiple budgets in a row since 2012-13 to 2014-15 when Brad Wall was the Saskatchewan premier.“Taxpayers balance their household budgets and they are only asking for the government to do the same,” CTF Prairie Director Gage Haubrich said.The taxpayer advocate recalled the early '90s when Saskatchewan was at risk of default as a series of budget deficits led to almost-unmanageable interest payments."it's a snowball problem," Haubrich said."Saskatchewan had to raise taxes and cut services, because they weren't able to make their debt interest obligations. So we're raising the alarm now, before we get back to that point again where the government is forced to raise taxes or cut services."Haubrich said as a general trend, expenses have grown almost twice as fast as revenues during the years of Sask Party government since 2007. He said a "line-by-line" look at spending is required."Some issues that we think are pretty important is cutting down on corporate welfare. Taxpayers shouldn't be giving money to corporations, to their businesses, and also looking into streamlining compensation costs. For example, when government employees get pensions that the rest of us don't get-- change it a little bit to get the cost down for taxpayers."Haubrich said the province needs to deliver a balanced budget on Wednesday."Let's make these the hard decisions now before we have to make harder decisions later," Haubrich said.“The debt cannot keep increasing and put taxpayers on the hook for even higher debt interest charges.”An online version of the debt clock is available at DebtClock.ca.