EDMONTON: Taxpayers were passed by in this year's Alberta budget in favor of massive spending hikes the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) said today.

"This is a spending budget," said CTF Alberta Director Mitchel Gray. "The province is spending more and more of its ever growing revenues with almost nothing flowing back into taxpayers' wallets."

The Federation pointed out that the province's program spending in 2000-2001will balloon by more than $1.6 billion to $16.7 billion from the original 1999-2000 spending projection of $15.1 billion - an increase of 11 percent.

"The government claimed that the extra money they spent as a result of this year's surplus constituted a "one-time" expenditure - clearly that's not the case. The province will be spending more next year than they did this year including the so-called 'one-time' expenditures," said Gray.

Meanwhile, Albertans will reap only $236 million in tax savings for the 2000-2001 fiscal year. The Federation concluded that most of these savings will accrue to high income Albertans. "Most middle- and low-income earners won't even see the measly tax cut portioned out this year," said Gray. "It's a safe bet that we'll see bigger, deeper, more meaningful tax cuts from Paul Martin's budget than from what has been provided by the Tories here today."

The CTF did have praise for the province's user fee review which will produce a savings of $60 million. "The lowering of user fees is good news but it's a very selective reduction measure," said Gray. "Only a few Albertans will see any benefit."

Gray said that the province should have implemented a broad-based income tax cut worth $500 million. "The government had the fiscal room to make a significant tax cut applicable to all Albertans. Instead they chose to spend our dividend."

"It looks like we'll have to wait until 2001, when the new single tax rate system kicks in, for meaningful tax relief," concluded Gray. "And that's a shame, because we could have had real tax relief today."