The cupboard is bare...

Nova Scotia’s new NDP government plays the oldest card in the political deck. Next steps:

1. Announce that you cannot be held to your campaign promises, which were to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting spending, as the situation has changed utterly.

2. Announce that you are amending provincial legislation mandating balanced budgets, though you forced an election over the previous government’s attempts to wriggle out of it.

3. Raise taxes.

4. Modify growth in spending slightly, announce that it has been "cut".

Related Posts

Pope Francis apologizes for residential school abuses

Politics Insider for April 1: First Nations delegates make progress at the Vatican; Trudeau pushes for a G19; and a Wildrose battle

New federal budget will include up to $8 billion in defence spending

Politics Insider for Apr. 7: Foreigners to be temporarily barred from buying homes in Canada; Ottawa to summon the Russian ambassador for tough questions over Kyiv atrocities; an Atlantic oil megaproject gets approved

5. Run big deficits.

6. Hope economy recovers.

7. As next election approaches, a) raise spending, but b) fudge deficit numbers to show budget balancing, just (at the top of the business cycle). Opposition parties will collude with you in (b) while denouncing (a) as not nearly sufficient.

8. Opposition elected on "fiscal reponsibility" platform.

9. Repeat steps 1 through 8.