Rick Lowe
Not to repeat myself, but…
We all know successive governments have been fiscally irresponsible for decades. 43 years of budget deficits and profligate spending and borrowing as if tomorrow would never come. Well guess what? Tomorrow if here!!!
I've stated my case about this, but if you were prime minister for a day, what would you do to get our fiscal house in order?
Only one ground rule. Give us possible solutions bearing in mind we have enjoyed quite a number of years of growth but now the country is broke.
Here's a couple more suggestions from me.
1. Set limits on tax levels as a percentage of GDP, possibly even a Constitutional amendment.
2. Give BahamasAir to the management and staff. That's right, give it to them, lock stock and barrel but with no subsidies going forward.
Yup, reality bites, and there is pain for us all in this process, but I honestly want to know what you would have done with the budget.
Will you share your thoughts?
Sure, an easy one to start.
I would nave dropped the duty rate to 15 or 20% flat across the board.
Is this not one of the consequences of WTO accession? They are hot to trot to play with the big boys, so why not act like them?
Example:
Lets say duty on Plywood is 20%.
Ordinarily, any duty changes are secret until spoken, and enacted when spoken.
Secrecy because, if you knew that it was going to 40
% you would rush out and buy, as a consumer or stocker. They do not want anyone taking advantage.
But, once it has gone up, sales drop, therefore less is ordered and imported. Their revenue drops also.
Inversely, if warning was given, yes, people would import or buy ahead of need. This is called planning. Investing. An alien concept for government but, you betcha, I would buy large.
Guess what?
Even though the rate is lower, the governments revenue would increase, and increase on the movement of money that is invested in plywood, that otherwise would not move.
Is not the aim to stimulate the economy? What is an aconomy if not simply Money moving?
I think the issue goes deeper than increasing taxes, or declining revenue though.
It is about control, control of people, their livelyhoods, the ability to manipulate the fate of people, while riding high on their backs.
Like some kind of exo-colonial subjugation.
Incedentally, I think their numbers are bad.
Look at the figures used in the tables.
Rick even though I hate saying it, I will.. I blame people like yourself who has pet up this govt since returning to office 3 years ago!!
Instead of telling them that they were messing up this country, you all keep telling them that they were doing a good job.. You keep writting letters to the papers about the PLP who is not the government at this time.. You all should have been helping your party to make better decisions year after year… When they hiked up almost everything when they introduced the excise tax, not many of you had anything to say but now you all want to scream??
I say, Yall cause this!!! I have been warning this country for the past 2 years but this govt only listens to its supporters..
You FNM supporters MUST encourage them to do better or this will only be the beginning of things to come!!
I aint giving them NO ideas because they don’t listen to any PLP!!
I will say this though, I thought that it would have made sense to raise the import tax on USED vehicles rather than the new ones to encourage more fuel efficient and more environmentally friendly vehicles.. That’s something I just can’t understand!!
Why raise the duty on New vehicles????
Dear Objective Thought:
The only response I can muster for this is read the posts at this site and at The Nassau Institute (http://www.nassauinstitute.org) and see who has tried to suggest the error of this government and the PLP governments ways with public policy options.
You’re far from objective with this comment.
Now there’s an objective thought :0)
One would have also thought that the government would encourage motor bikes, or bicycles, but no, the duty on them is & has been in the 70 % range,how stupid is that? Seems to me that someone is NOT thinking at all.
Don’t be so naive to think, that just a switch in govt. is going to bring the country out of this situation. Truth is, both parties, have been fiscally irresponsible. In the last 15 years, both parties have been in power during decent economic times, where govt. revenues had increased year over year, but yet there was never once a balanced budget or a govt. surplus.
Bottom line is the size of the Bahamian govt and its reach is unsustainable and some tough decisions, which will be initially unpopular will have to be be made, and quite frankly, I don’t think nobody in our political sphere is willing to make them. They will basically, just do the same thing under different brand. As I say, I am an eternal optimist because I believe in God, because on paper things don’t look good.
Many good points Larry.
As I read the Budget Communication I see many tough decisions have been made!
The point of all this is we all need to submit our thoughts and be prepared to tighten our belts.
We’ve been lucky for a long time and it could be worse.
My main objective is to get government to realise it is spending that’s the problem.
I don’t remember saying that a switch in govt would bring us out of this situation.
What I did say was that FNMs need to encourage their party members to do better rather than encouraging them when they know that they are not doing a good job!! I have heard PLPs make suggestions or offer assistance in the HOA and all they get from the FNM is, “If the people wanted yall ideas, yall would have been here and we would have been over there..” The PM is not interested in anything that anyone in the PLP has to say.. He treats PLP MPs as if they were not elected by the people…
Thanks OT:
At this stage the PLP have an obligation to say what they would do to solve the dilemma our country faces.
Albeit they have as much blood on their hands as the FNM do with the fiscal tragedy we face, but I don’t see or hear their potential solutions.
Can you reiterate them here please? Or maybe direct us to a list of the policies they would pursue?
Right now we need to get past the blame, ’cause there’s surely enough of that to go around, and ensure our government commits to reducing spending. That is the problem. What we are facing today are the symptoms of decades of over spending.
And it seems to be getting worse under each government…
The LOP government had a $1.2 billion debt after 25 years in office.
Then the first 2 terms of the FNM govt. added about $1 billion to that debt in 9 and a half years.
The last PLP government added $800 million to that debt.
Now in just 3 years almost 41 billion has been added to that debt..
I still feel that the LOP government was the best at proper management of our economy because it produced several millionaires..
I wonder how many millionaires were added during the HI era and the PC era???
HI has added more to the National debt in 13 years than the PLP has done in 30 years!!!
Yet many of you still think that HI is a better manager of our economy than PC.. PC and the PLP are more interested in building people rather than buildings! The FNM seems only interested in building buildings!! The PLP would never have done many of the kind of Tax hikes that we have seen under this govt…
Just look at the Education Building on Thompson Blvd and the Health Building on Meeting Street.. The PLP quickly finished them when regaining office in 2002 and had them occupied within a year and a half..
Look at what the FNM has done with the new T.G. Glover Primary School and the Mortgage corporation building… They haven’t been opened yet and we have no idea when they will be opened… I did agree with them redoing the roof on the Mortgage Corporation building though because I thought that that was a mess…
BY now you are wondering when I’m I going to talk about solutions… Well, I am showing you that the PLP cares about people
Dear OT:
Back on April 17 I posted this blog http://bit.ly/9ob9Wj about government spending.
The info is from 2003 to 2008.
Just look at the huge income and even larger expenditures.
You can’t keep spending more than you take in and borrow more than you can repay and expect positive results.
All you need is a blip on the economic radar and whammo!