One step forward, twelve steps back. That's one way to describe the tax record of the current provincial government.

In the run-up to the expected spring election, government politicians have been bragging that they have cut taxes. But the true tax record of this government is that its tax hikes have been twelve times bigger than its tax cuts.

Since the last provincial budget, Saskatchewan's Finance Minister, Eric Cline, has been crowing about his government's record on tax relief. The Minister and his spin-doctors would have us believe that they have cut income taxes by 10% and sales taxes by 33%. But they are playing fast and loose with the truth.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation looked at the tax measures in each of NDP budgets since 1992, and calculated the cumulative impact of each tax cut and tax hike.

Our research showed that since 1992, the NDP government's tax cuts have added up to $320 million, but its tax increases have added up to $4 billion, for a net tax increase of about $3.7 billion. In other words, the government has hauled in about $3.7 billion in new tax revenue thanks to rate hikes, or about $460 million per year in higher taxes.

That works out to be about $3,700 since 1992 for every man, woman, and child in Saskatchewan, or $460 bucks a year.

And this calculation is relatively easy on the government. We did not include things like bracket creep, higher utility taxes, the jump in payroll taxes, and increasing property taxes, which have added even more to the overall Saskatchewan tax burden.

So let's take another look at what Eric Cline and the spin-doctors are selling.

Yes, the government reduced the Deficit Reduction Surtax in 1995, cut income tax rates by two points in 1998, and lowered the PST from 9% to 6%. But let's not forget that this is the same government that gave us the Deficit Reduction Surtax in the first place and drove up the PST rate from 7% - when they took office - to its high of 9%, where it remained until 1996.

For the government to claim political credit for cutting taxes they hiked in the first place is a stretch, to say the least. And for the most part, the government has only reversed a small portion of the hike in tax rates that we have suffered with since 1992-93.

Pardon me for holding my applause.

The government will probably try to rationalize this massive tax hike by blaming their predecessors, claiming they had to clean up the mess left by the Devine administration. But after eight years in power, the excuses are wearing pretty thin.

It is this government that decided to focus on massive tax increases, rather than prioritizing and controlling spending.

The numbers speak for themselves. For every dollar in tax cuts since 1992, the government has gained twelve dollars by hiking tax rates. It is time for the government to come clean, quit shifting the blame, and accept responsibility for our province's massive tax burden.