Thread by @yomeeks

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ notes that Franco "The Turd" Terrazzano repeats the same thing Licia said last week. It is still wrong no matter how many times you say it. #ABLeg

calgaryherald.com/opinion/column…

I don't want to risk giving this thoughtless screed more airtime... but I can't resist.

His premise is that the only option for Toews is to legislate rollbacks for the public sector. You know, like all those health care workers that have saved us from the worst of COVID. #ABLeg

He is, of course, signaling that deep in the Terrace Building Travis has a team drafting legislation to do just that. But I digress.

Albert has another option: fire Travis. His legacy of poor financial decisions is unmatched. He has backed AB into a corner. #ABLeg #incompetent

I will attempt to stay in my lane: moving the teachers' pension plan to AIMCO will have a cost estimated at $1.6 billion over the next four years in the form of lower returns. Half of that would belong the the GOA.

Travis has turned his nose $800 million of revenue. #ABLeg #fail

Turned his nose up to prove some cheap political point.

Trump wanted to get rid of everything with Obama's name on it. Travis felt the same need to unload the ND crude by rail contracts. Hindsight: should have held on to them and they would have cost a fraction of what they did

Corporate income tax cuts during a pandemic? When we are already the lowest tax jurisdiction by far? Really? Bad decision #ABLeg

"Toews only has one option to fix the budget: cut spending." Bullshit.

He can increase revenue. He can stop investing in jobs in Montana. He can learn that in free market economies the government has only very limited control. #ABLeg

The UCP just don't seem to understand capitalism that well. I have before in my life been placed in the unfortunate position of having to explain capitalism to capitalists. I will just say this once:

The price of oil or any commodity is no one's fault. #ABLeg

"The Alberta government’s labour costs make up more than half of its operating budget."

True but not probative. For schools it is more like 90% labour. But Albertans still need schools even if the price of oil is sub $50. #ABLeg (never mind natural gas)

"For five years now, workers outside of government have been feeling the pain of Alberta’s economic downturn."

To give the history some context, five years has been the time since the height of the last oil boom. Franco, did you really think that would last forever? #ABLeg #fail

Franco should pull in a 10 or 15 year time frame to compare GOA expenditures in labour to be intellectually honest. The full cycle would provide some different answers. Through Rachel's entire time in power and so far with the UCP teachers have settled for 0%. #ABLeg

In fact it was Joe Ceci who reigned in the tory-land dynasty of executive compensation at agencys, board and commissions. A task so many previous finance ministers abysmally had failed at. Pay for school superintendents was also rationalized. #ABLeg

In fact, in the last 8 years it was 1% once and 0% every other year. I think the nurses and other large groups were 0% as well. So the use of the word "ballooning" needs further qualification. #ABLeg

Public sector compensation doesn't follow private sector compensation in oil booms, but Franco here wants it to follow private sector compensation in times of bust.

Dog, your kids still need schooling, vehicles need to be licensed, and highways need to be plowed regardless.

Education costs in AB (using MacKinnon's metric) are still far below the average of the three large prov. We could be the lowest if we cut off private schools from public funding. But yet education has been cut. #ABLeg

BTW, closing rural hospitals is a proven money saver. One that Travis rejected out of hand given his electorate.

So don't tell me Travis doesn't have choices. He does. #ABLeg

"Private sector compensation still remains lower today than it was five years ago."

This isn't news. This is encouragement to spend some money diversifying your economy so private sector compensation doesn't follow the commodity cycle as closely. #ABLeg

"As SecondStreet.Org reported, the vast majority of Alberta’s government employees haven’t seen a pay cut since 1994."

Franco needs to get a good economics textbook and look up the purpose of inflation. One of the reasons theorized is to give workers a cut. #ABLeg

The years and years of zeros that different public sector groups have absorbed are cuts in and of themselves.

Travis had developed a huge deficit before COVID.

Stay tuned for later today. Q2 results for LAPP from AIMCO are out. Spoiler alert: still under-performing. #ABLeg