The provincial government's recent presentation of its revised budget is insulting.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen announced Tuesday that British Columbia's deficit for this fiscal year is now expected to come in at $1.4 billion - $335 million less than when the plan was tabled.

That much is good.

But then Hansen went on to invite taxpayers to tell him what to do with the government's newly "available dollars" for next year. Fund new services? Cut taxes? Reduce the debt?

This part is outrageous.

It doesn't take an accountant to understand that these dollars are fictitious.

The province isn't making more money than originally planned; it's only borrowing less. There is not, in fact, any "extra" money available at all.

To treat the difference between the old projected deficit and the new projected deficit as cash is misleading and irresponsible - and doubly so coming from a government that only just repealed its own law making deficits illegal.

Worse, to suggest that this discrepancy could be used to pay down debt crosses the line from ill-advised to ridiculous.

Since when can negative funds be used to cut debt?

It's nothing new for a government to use accounting sleight-of-hand to buy votes, but to do so in such a blatant fashion is disrespectful.

Any voter with a credit card understands our province's predicament very well.

No amount of silly rhetoric is going to change that.

If the B.C. Liberals want to regain the respect of their electorate, they have to stop trying to dupe them, and begin treating them as the thinking adults that they are.