Self-help gurus will tell you the first step on the road to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Unfortunately, this adage is a lost concept by most governments who are incapable or unwilling to admit they have a problem - a spending problem that is. But the sooner Manitoba's NDP government admits it, the better off we will all be.

Revenues (read: taxes) are at an all time high. So too is spending. The whole sordid tale is laid out in the 2005-06 Public Accounts (annual reports published by the government to lay out how much of our money was collected, spent and borrowed for our children to pay back). The province's operating budget came in with a $31 million surplus with -- surprisingly -- no dip into the rainy day fund. However, don't be misled dear taxpayer. This government has not seen the light on fiscal prudence. The tax take is up $69-million over the previous year. And further bolstering the province's economic fortune was a $118 million cash windfall from Ottawa for various social services including health and childcare.

Adding it all up, including additional revenues from Hydro and other crown corporations, spending increased by $566 million last year. That's twice the amount spent in this year's budget servicing the ever-growing public debt.

Why should this be raising red flags for Manitobans Simply put, the NDP
government is spending away our present and shoring up cash for their political future. With the rainy day fund now at a comfortable $530 million, the government has positioned itself -- with our money -- to do the predictable: buy off voters with their own money. Promises to fix roads and "invest" more dollars in health and education have already been flowing from the lips of our provincial politicians.

Any chance of a tax cut A fall session of the legislature is forthcoming; perhaps the Doer government might spare a dime for the taxpayers that keep his government flush with cash. Considering MLAs and scores of senior bureaucrats saw their salaries jump last year between six to thirteen percent, no doubt Manitoba families with ever-increasing school tax rates, user fees, utility costs and higher priced goods and services could use a pay raise of their own.

This year Tax Freedom Day in Manitoba fell on June 20th. Translated, that means taxpayers worked 171 days of the year to pay for three levels of politicians, bureaucrats, administrators and political staffers to decide how to best spend our earnings. Here's a radical concept: allow taxpayers to keep more of their own earnings and make decisions for themselves.

What the province needs most, which this government refuses to provide, is a long-term economic strategy. A strategy that includes tax reduction, debt repayment, spending within our means and the dignity of self-reliance by getting off our addiction to federal handouts. Manitoba's reliance on equalization payments is now at a historic high with over $3 billion coming from taxpayers in other parts of the country. Sadly, nothing will change until our provincial politicians first admit ... they have a spending problem.