In Alberta they used to say the only way taxes are going is down.

Now the only way taxes are going is up.

Which taxes and how much is the only thing that’s still up for grabs.

The premier is asked point blank Wednesday about the likelihood Albertans are going to face some kind of increased taxation.

Get your Connect the Dots dictionary out and follow along.

“Clearly we’re going to have to increase government revenues. There are no other alternatives,” says Premier Prentice.

“We can run, to some degree, a deficit. Beyond that we have to cut expenses and increase revenues. There are no other alternatives and we need to do it in a balanced way.

“You cannot sustain the highest quality and most expensive public services in the country without a revenue base. It’s not possible.”

With less cash coming in from the oilpatch golden goose the finger points at us for the “revenue.”

Earlier, in the to-and-fro with newshounds, Prentice says not only does Alberta have the highest cost public services in the country and the highest wages in the public sector but the province has the lowest corporate income tax, the lowest personal income tax, the lowest gas tax and no provincial sales tax.

Prentice says that arrangement worked out because of the oodles of oilpatch royalties coming into the government kitty but now that coin has, in the premier’s words, “essentially evaporated.”

“We have lived in a world where we’ve had high-quality, expensive public services and low taxes and the two can’t be reconciled when the government oil revenues it’s been based upon have collapsed,” says Prentice.

“And I do mean collapsed.”

Prentice says the past year’s budget scored $9-billion-plus from oil’s black gold but now “all but a small part of that has essentially evaporated.”

He again says the government has three ways out and he want to use all three.

The first is to cut spending. The second is to “increase revenues through taxes.” The third is to run deficits.

So we could get a provincial sales tax, yes, an Alberta PST, a Prentice Sales Tax.

Or Prentice could say no to the PST and we could all be in for an income tax hike. Or we could see higher income earners taxed at a higher rate. Or both.

It could be more tax at the pump. Or health care premiums hitting those whose companies won’t pay that bill and hitting hardest those of modest income.

It could be more than one whack to the wallet. There is a big hole to fill. The Prentice Progressive Conservatives need to find dough.

No decisions have been made but one way or another we will pay for the folly of past Progressive Conservative mismanagement, the squandering of cash, the lack of planning, the buying of votes in the one-party state.

These are all sins where the PCs will almost certainly never pay a political price.

That’s why the sins were committed so easily. Enough Albertans marked the X next to the PC candidate.

As for those people speaking out, Prentice does remind us he’s didn’t say he supports a sales tax. He doesn’t feel Albertans want a sales tax.

He’s heard such sentiment over the last day.

He just wants to hear more opinions about a sales tax.

Actually this writer believed there would be more pushback against a sales tax.

You know, the vocal and vehement stuff, the in-your-face agitation, the heat sending those pickpocketing politicians scurrying back to the drawing board.

In the past, even in the very recent past, the reaction to a sales tax often started with an F and ended with a You.

Then again, those rallying the troops in the past have switched sides and don’t wag their tongues anymore.

That’s why the deal to get Wildrose MLA to defect was so important, before the budget and before this spring’s likely election.

For the tax medicine to go down a little easier, Prentice does say the government will talk with public sector workers on how “to deal with the fiscal constraints we are now seeing.”

Good luck with that.

Are we talking wage rollbacks here? These PCs don’t have the spine and the unions know it.

We also hear the province is reviewing how fast spending for construction on Calgary’s southwest ring road will roll out. More delays.

Yes, another day ends with Prentice once again rousing Albertans to sacrifice in the battle against this blitz of bad news.

“We will weather this,” says the premier.

“We’ve been through low oil prices before. We’ll see low prices again. We will get through this.”

Alas, last time around the provincial government didn’t tax us to victory.