Whenever anyone tries to bring up the massive, record breaking deficits tabled by Manitoba's NDP government, the government and its cheerleaders immediately throw in the 2011 flood as an excuse for the pool of red ink.

However, if you pull flood spending out of the picture and look at say 2013 or 2014 forecasts you see a different story.

You see the province's 2010 budget (page 10) predicted spending would be $14.403 billion in 2013/14. However, if you look at the 2012 budget, you'll see spending is now expected to hit $14.660 billion. Had the NDP met their original 2013/14 spending target, they would be running a $296 million surplus (based on the most recent revenue projections in budget 2012.) That's a far cry from the $176 million deficit they're projecting.

Do the same for 2014/15 and we would be looking at a $602 million surplus instead of the razor thing $23 million surplus the NDP have projected.

And people wonder why our tax rates are so high here in Manitoba - if a certain government could control its spending, we would be in a completely different situation. One thing the government can't do is blame it on the flood.