A financial think-tank has gone over the numbers since 1965 to find who our biggest-spending premiers were.

The Fraser Institute looked at spending per person, taking into account inflation. It found that Liberal Joey Smallwood and PC Danny Williams were the most generous with tax dollars.

Alex Whalen, senior economist with the Fraser Institute, is co-author of Newfoundland and Labrador Premiers and Provincial Government Spending.

He found that government spending really took off with the advent of the oil and gas industry, particularly in the Williams years.

In the early 2000’s, spending per person ran anywhere from $10,000 to $11,000 but went to $16,000 per person from about 2003 to 2010. Whalen calls that a massive expansion of government spending which has contributed to some of the fiscal challenges we have today.