Thread by @ProgressAlberta

The 2019 budget makes a game effort to hide its austerity with duct tape and chewing gum but it’s a fundamentally brutal document where the poor, post-secondary students and public servants eat it so Jason Kenney can help out the rich. The highlights below #ableg

Vape taxes coming spring 2020. AirBnB folks will have to pay the hospitality levy in spring 2020 as well. The price of a carton of smokes is going up by $5 at midnight. #ableg

Everyone but the rich eats it in this budget but public sector workers, post-secondary students, and people on AISH and rental assistance get it the worst. You'll notice the cruelty is reserved for the least likely UCP voters. #ableg.

There is a 2.8% cut to operating expenses over the next 4 years but accounting for inflation/population growth it's more like a 10.5% cut. Don't @ us with "freezes aren't cuts," the govt acknowledges that premise in that they're funding enrolment growth in k-12 education #ableg

Here is the bad news. The UCP say they can save $550 million from reducing the size of the public sector. The public sector is 210,000 full time equivalent positions.
We're talking nurses, paramedics and teachers. #ableg

The UCP have committed to a 7.7% reduction in the size of the public service. That's government departmental staff and that's nearly 28,000 full time equivalents. That's a reduction of 2000 folks or so. They say it will be through a mix of layoffs and attrition.

If those folks being laid off make $100,000 a year that’s $200 million in savings. That’s $350 million Jason Kenney still needs to cut from the public sector. That’s thousands less nurses, paramedics and teachers on the frontlines or its wage rollbacks or its both. #ableg

That's just the public sector. Kenney is also cutting the Rental Assistance program by 24% over the next 3 years for $44 million worth of "savings." That's directly targeting the working poor. #ableg

Most shamefully AISH and many other programs to help out seniors and the poor are being de-indexed from inflation making every year a cut. The UCP are trotting out a "no cuts to social programs" line. It's a straight up lie. If benefits don't increase with inflation it's a cut

And finally post-secondary gets the biggest middle finger from the UCP. A $275 million cut for next year. There's a $109 million cut to capital maintenance for #abpse, good thing unis don't have a bunch of old buildings they need to take care of. #ableg

That's all for now but there is so much more cruelty and austerity hidden in this budget and we will continue to dig it out. Stay tuned.