Big spending? Balanced budget? NDP wants both

John Horgan is already making massive election promises and the NDP leader hasn’t even unveiled his official campaign platform yet.

Horgan has so far promised to eliminate bridge tolls, freeze B.C. Hydro rates, eliminate Medical Services Plan premiums, bring in $10-a-day child care, spend $2.2 billion on public transit and four-lane the Trans-Canada Highway from Kamloops to the Alberta border.

But you ain’t seen nothing yet. On Thursday, watch for Horgan to perform a fiscal miracle by promising to do all this — and undoubtedly even more — and still balance the budget in Year 1 of an NDP government.

Then get set for Christy Clark and her Liberals to call Horgan the biggest liar since Pinocchio.

“He can’t afford to pay for it,” Clark said Tuesday, minutes after she officially launched the four-week campaign for the May 9 election.

Clark said Horgan’s promise to eliminate tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges would cost $200 million in lost government revenue alone.

“John Horgan has blown the entire budget on one promise,” Clark said.

Well, not quite. But when you add up everything else Horgan has promised already, it’s hard to see how he avoids drowning B.C. in a sea of red ink.

So how could Horgan balance the books? Clark sees only one way.

“It’s all going to come in the form of higher taxes,” she said. “The NDP would push people to the brink.”

Horgan has vowed to raise income taxes on the province’s top wage earners — those making more than $150,000 a year.

But an income tax on the rich would only generate $250 million a year in additional government revenue. That’s nowhere near enough to pay for everything Horgan has promised so far — the child-care plan alone would cost $1.5 billion — so where is the rest of the money supposed to come from?

That will also be revealed Thursday, when Horgan rolls out the official NDP campaign platform.

There’s no way the NDP will threaten middle- or low-wage earners with a tax hike. And I doubt he will slap a tax on small businesses either. That leaves big corporations — like those big, greedy banks — that could be in line for an NDP tax hike. We shall see.

But no matter what Horgan promises — and no matter how he crunches his budget numbers — the Liberals will still accuse him of having a secret plan to jack up taxes on everybody.

In contrast, Clark and the Liberals rolled out a modest platform with only small spending increases.

“Our plan is costed and paid for — it doesn’t mean higher taxes,” Clark said.

Horgan knows the Liberals will skewer his election platform as a big, fat, unaffordable fantasy. And I don’t think he cares one bit.

Many people are feeling pinched, stretched and weak in the wallet. The NDP will woo them with big-spending promises — all while miraculously balancing the books — and bet voters are willing to believe.