There are alternatives. Read on.
The Bahamas Government is implementing a Value Added Tax (VAT) come July 1 this year with talk of implementing an even larger welfare state with the introduction of socialised medicine.
These are policies that other countries implemented more than 25 years ago. But these countries, once held up as shining examples are now having to face the music and cut back.
The Recent Scandinavian Experience
"The Nordic model, known for high taxes and its cradle-to-grave welfare system, is getting a radical makeover as nations find themselves cash-strapped." More…
The Recent French Experience
"More than 70 per cent of the French feel taxes are “excessive”, and 80 per cent believe the president’s economic policy is “misguided” and “inefficient”. This goes far beyond the tax exiles such as Gérard Depardieu, members of the Peugeot family or Chanel’s owners. Worse, after decades of living in one of the most redistributive systems in western Europe, 54 per cent of the French believe that taxes – of which there have been 84 new ones in the past two years, rising from 42 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 46.3 per cent this year – now widen social inequalities instead of reducing them." More…
Economic Freedom
Simply put, these policies are unsustainable.
So what is the answer? Well, economic freedom is.
According to Free the World.com;
"Economic freedom has been shown in numerous peer-reviewed studies to promote prosperity and other positive outcomes. It is a necessary condition for democratic development. It liberates people from dependence on government in a planned economy, and allows them to make their own economic and political choices. For information on the effects of economic freedom, please see papers. " More…
Will the government of The Bahamas consider reasonable alternatives or have they put blinders on to the fact that reasonable alternatives exist like economic growth strategies? Or will they forge ahead with outdated policies like VAT and socialised medicine causing more economic destruction?
Prior to our Independence, government spending was based on fiscal prudence and was a function of the amount of revenues raised.. Government followed the age old principle “spend on what you need and not on what you want”.. No one at that time ever heard of a deficit or deficit spending..
With the advent of Independence, government was free to do what ever it chose to do always of course in the name of the people.. Government spending was extended to include not only what the country needed but to what government decided it wanted on behalf of the people.. The Bahamian Monetary Board was scraped and replaced by a Central Bank which could expand the money supply and borrow money on behalf of the government.. This opened the door to imprudent fiscal policies as every year since Independence, government deficit spending has compounded the growth of the nation’s deficit which today has just about destroyed the financial creditability of the country..
We now are close to financial self-destruction as government has desperately turned to disguised Keynesian solutions such as VAT as a cure all for the country’s economic and financial ills.. What an economic paradox and contradiction, as government is turning again to the same failed Keynesian policies which got us into the current economic mess we find ourselves in today.. To try to spend your way out of a crippling deficit is sheer economic insanity .. There is no historical evidence that such a brainless policy ever works but only leads to larger, more bureaucratic and less-efficient governments.. This is what has happened to Europe and now playing out in the United States..
Time to wake up Bahamas.. today government is the catalysis of our nation’s decline and possible self-destruction.. VAT will dive a large segment of the middle class into the ranks of poverty.. Think our cost of living is high, well take a look at New Zealand where the cost of living is totally out of sight.. These are the so-called experts that government wants to bring here to extol the virtues of VAT.. What a charade, they don’t even call this Very Awful Tax, a value added tax, VAT, in their own country.. Wonder why?? They are going to have answer some very trying questions if the Bahamian public is permitted to confront them in public form..
As to the question of will the Bahamas become a failing European-type welfare state all depends on the political direction and course the government elects to purse.. If our history proves correct, then were are heading into troubled waters where the ship of state may very well sink..