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First, there’s the choice whether to engage in a slash-and-burn plan at all.

If the provincial budget is manageable based on a longer-term view, then the best course of action is to avoid doing gratuitous damage to the income and job security of workers when our economy is at its most fragile.

Conversely, if Wall has set us on a course toward inexorable fiscal ruin, then we have every reason to be skeptical of his judgment. And we should expect our government to be responsible enough to work toward a sustainable path — not to limit any adjustments to short-sighted cuts which cause disproportionate long-term damage while merely putting off the inevitable.

Second, there’s the question as to where changes to the budget should be made.

On that front, the Saskatchewan Party is first ruling out the obvious alternative to yet another round of austerity — which is to restore some of the sources of present-day revenue which have been eliminated through giveaways to its corporate donors.

Wall’s stay in power has been littered with tax goodies and cuts which funnelled billions into corporate coffers. And none offered any benefit other than the implausible assurance that trickle-down economic policy would eventually build a more resilient economy.

That was always a dubious proposition. But there’s no room for any conclusion now other than that Wall’s crony capitalism has failed miserably. And given the choice as to who’s going to make up for that failure, surely it makes more sense to target the corporate titans who have been living large, rather than people who are already struggling to get by.