"All varieties of (government) interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which — from the point of view of the authors' and advocates' valuations — is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter. If one wants to correct their manifest unsuitableness and preposterousness by supplementing the first acts of intervention with more and more of such acts, one must go farther and farther until the market economy has been entirely destroyed and socialism has been substituted for it." (Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 854)

Continually “negotiating” with government over the terms of negative public policy and suggesting this process makes a bad public policy more palatable at the outset, is as corrupt as the bad policy itself.

Claiming victory today over lessening the policies impact is pyrrhic and does not remove the negative effects of the policy, nor does it prevent the government from changing and making the policy even more burdensome in the future.

“Negotiating better terms” for Value Added Tax or Tax Compliance Certificates for example, while agreeing with the general principle of these negative public policies, continues to add to government red tape and the size of the country’s already bloated bureaucracy, and the eventual downfall of the market system as Mises explained above.

If the political directorate was sincere with their “negotiating” would government spending still be on the drastic rise? Would they be threatening to present more legislation off a fascist bent to harm prospects for employment?

The list can go on, but suffice it to say, the business community needs to take a moral stand. The government needs to be left to be hoisted by its own petard for its bad public policy. Unfortunately negotiating compromise with the government makes one complicit with the implementation and outcomes that have been foisted upon all Bahamians in recent years.