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With its budget tabled this week, the B.C. government may have underplayed its hand. It’s difficult to see what elements of it the Liberals can use effectively in their election campaign.

The reduction in Medical Service Plan premiums will certainly be seen by voters, not as an election goodie, but as a partial rollback of the inexorable increases this same government has imposed over the years. Besides, most of the benefit will accrue to employers who pay premiums on behalf of their employees — not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it seems a weak vote-getter.

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Had the same money, about $1 billion, been used to reduce personal income tax rates or PST rates (or both), the impact would have more broadly based and highly visible. It would also have encouraged citizens to work, to invest and to consume — and maybe to vote Liberal.

The government trumpeted that Budget 2017 was its fifth straight balanced budget. While balancing the books is to be applauded, recall what the pledge to balanced budgets did for the Conservatives and the NDP in the last federal election. Voters elected the one party that promised deficits.