You know the Alberta government is swimming in money when it blows $230,000 on feel-good television and newspaper ads to promote Budget 2003-04.

Politicians will tell you this $230,000 campaign is necessary "to get the facts out." But Alberta's radio, television and newspaper media are already doing that without costing taxpayers one cent. Albertans who want more details on the budget can log on to the government's web site or call their MLA. They will do so without $230,000 worth of encouragement. Budget-related issues (like property tax increases) continue getting radio, television and newspaper coverage on a daily basis, none of which costs any tax dollars. Premier Klein and his ministers have ready access to media, with a fair shot at explaining why they think this budget is good.

Nevertheless, Premier Klein's government will spend $230,000 to tell Albertans that this budget is good. Is this ad campaign a better use of money than letting Albertans spend $230,000 of their own money on things like food, clothing, housing, charitable giving, holidays, paying off student loans and other debts, saving for one's retirement, saving for children's education, etc.

But do these $230,000 in ads contain the factual information our well-funded and generously-staffed Public Affairs Bureau would claim Yes, factual information that is nicely packaged and artfully presented to proclaim one simple message: "this budget is good."

A message proclaiming that this budget is bad would also be based on facts. For example, spending on government programs is 60% higher than seven years ago, while Alberta's population grew by only 14%. No other government in Canada - federal or provincial - has hiked its program spending by 60% in seven years. Taxes were raised by $641 million last year and cut by only $94 million this year. Double-digit pay increases for doctors, nurses, MLAs, teachers and provincial government employees are higher than pay increases received by workers in the private sector. Alberta spends more, per person, on government programs than any other province in Canada (except P.E.I., an over-governed island which gets more than one third of its money from Ottawa). Alberta could easily eliminate the provincial school property tax and the provincial fuel tax and the health care premium tax if it spent as much (per person) on government programs as NDP Saskatchewan does. These are all facts, too, but you won't see them in this $230,000 ad campaign.

You can use facts to support the opinion that this budget is good, and you can use facts to support the opinion that this budget is bad. Tax dollars should not be used to promote one particular opinion - neither of Premier Klein nor of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation nor of anyone else.

This $230,000 campaign is "only" one eighth of one percent of one percent of this year's $20.3 billion budget. But if a government is not prepared to say "no" to $230,000 of unnecessary spending, don't count on it to stop wasting millions or billions. As the old saying goes: "He who is faithful in little things can be trusted with big things; and he who is untrustworthy in small matters cannot be relied on in large matters."