AIMS Fellow in Public Finance, Roland Martin, analyses how fiscal discipline in New Brunswick, PEI and Newfoundland over the past few years continues to pay dividends for the taxpayers in those provinces, as evidenced by recent tax cuts. By contrast, the author of Debtors' Prison II shows how Nova Scotia's continued deficit financing has significantly harmed what should be one of the region's strongest economies.
At a retreat of Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency executives, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley was invited to sit on a panel entitled "Direct Investment in Business or Indirect Infrastructure and Business Support: Finding the Right Balance."
Fred McMahon, author of AIMS' book Road to Growth, has responded to Quebec Finance Minister Bernard Landry's claim that Quebec is now following Ireland's lead in economic and budgetary policy.
In this column for The Globe and Mail, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues that Atlantic Canada's chief problem is not too many governments, but rather too much government, a very different proposition. The solution? Stronger rules on internal trade to restrain provincial governments from indulging in foolish and parochial policies at the expense of the economic rights of all Canadians, including Atlantic Canadians.
In his regular column in the Halifax Sunday Herald, David Gratzer tells federal finance minister Paul Martin that he should draw his inspiration from the economic success stories detailed in AIMS' new book, Road to Growth. Publication: CHH, February 27, 2000.
Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm has said he want to see Nova Scotia become a "have" province within ten years. But a crucial building block of the necessary economic growth is repairing the province's finances. According to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley , the recent report of the Fiscal Management Task Force reviewing the province's program spending does not give Premier Hamm the blueprint he needs to reach his goal. Click here to read "We could have it all", originally published in the Halifax Daily News on 12 February 2000.
But a crucial building block of the necessary economic growth is repairing the province's finances. According to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley , the recent report of the Fiscal Management Task Force reviewing the province's program spending does not give Premier Hamm the blueprint he needs to reach his goal. Click here to read "We could have it all"
Learn from the example of cities such as Indianapolis and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. In all these cases, administrators demanded that in-house providers of public services give a true and transparent account of the cost of providing their service. That allowed rigorous cost-comparisons between public and private providers, and ensured that the most efficient, whether public or private, served the public, while saving the taxpayer a bundle.
So you think that it’s hard to cut $500-million from the spending of the province of Nova Scotia? That the government’s huge annual deficit can only be eliminated by painful cuts to vital public services, or by putting hundreds of public employees on the unemployment line, or by jacking up taxes? Think again. In fact it is relatively easy to eliminate that $500-million deficit within three years, thus bringing the budget into balance. And it can be done without cutting a single public service that Nova Scotians regard as essential to their well-being, without raising a single tax or imposing any new health care charges, and without firing one single employee of the public sector or forcing anyone to take unpopular unpaid leave. Moreover, certain classes of underpaid civil servants will get raises and, at the end of the three years, there will be room for tax cuts or debt reduction.
Economic growth is not a mysterious force that strikes unpredictably or whose absence is inexplicable, according to Fred McMahon, Road to Growth. McMahon's book shows that successful economies maintain moderate costs, particularly labour costs and taxes. That leaves room for healthy profits, which in turn attract and fund further investment.