UDP Politics as Usual…

A little understanding…

Well, the Prime Minister has presented his budget called ‘recovery today, prosperity tomorrow.’ Wonder what clown came up with that one. Ask anybody on the street and they would tell you that it would be more aptly named – ‘pay today, poorer tomorrow.’ But anyway, driving down this morning I was listening to WAVE Radio cause the other talk shows were on commercial break, and I have to say I felt a little tug on my heartstrings. There was Fonso valiantly trying to defend the budget, backed up by his buddy with the 100 year old face and 20 year old hair. See, sometimes I think we’re a little too hard on the sissy boy from the Guardian. I heard him say this morning that Belizeans are happy because here we were thinking that we would have to pay more out of pocket, when the reality is that because of the PM’s brilliance, the coming year will be a time of plenty for poor Belizeans. Normally I’d bash him for being an idiot, but in a reflective mood this morning, I realize that Fonso really is just singing for his supper and nothing else. He must realize that the budget is a bad one which will bring even more pain and suffering down on Belizeans. Everybody else realizes it. I mean, if Fonso really believes what he is saying, his brain would already have exploded from stupidity overload. Just ask anybody, Jack, this is a bad budget presented by an incompetent and insensitive government led by a millionaire who has no clue how poor Belizeans are living.

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Mounting frustration…

There’s a little lesson which I’ve learned after many years in the game. Whenever the woman does something wrong and is guilty, that is when she will be the most hysterical and angry, lashing out in an attempt to intimidate her partner into silence, muddy the waters and distract from the wrong which was done. Does that type of behavior remind anybody of somebody’s actions recently – the Prime Minister, maybe? Talk about hot flashes. See, the Prime Minister is no dummy, though he surely seemed like one on Monday. He knows that his budget is messed up. But he feels that he can lather up the bukut with some Vaseline and shaft Belizeans while smiling prettily. That was the reason for the ruction in the House, all the name-calling and all the drama-queen antics. I don’t need to go into the response from the streets, because the Prime Minister has already gotten the sense of how stupid he was. The thing is that there were school-children sitting in the House, and they had to witness that unruly behavior from the leader of the nation, Hell, if the leader of the nation can do it, then it must be okay, right? That is the example that Mr. Barrow is setting for our children, then he scratches his head and wonders why crime is completely out of control and our social ills are escalating. Just look in the mirror, brother! That’s the reason right there.

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Consumers WILL pay…

Belizeans are not fools. Barrow is saying on one hand that he expects to collect about $109M extra in taxes this year; and almost in the same breath says that price of goods will go down and Belizeans will have more spending power. Pray tell, Mr. Barrow, just where will the $109M come from? Will it just magically appear out of thin air? Where it will come from, Mr. Barrow, is out of our pockets. There is no getting away from that. No flowery language can disguise that fact. The whopping increase in GST will be passed on to consumers for sure. We all know that. The 300% increase in business tax on BEL will be passed on to consumers for sure. We know that too. Everything the Prime Minister spoke about in terms of taxation will come out of our pockets. So the truth is that the cost of goods will not go down, but will skyrocket yet again. The cost of utilities will go up. The cost of services will go up. The cost of everything will go up, and at a time when 43% of the country’s population is already below the poverty line, with another 14% vulnerable to falling below that line. Countries all around the world are stimulating economies to deal with the global crisis, refusing to tax residents who are already being burdened. But no, our Prime Minister’s answer to the crisis is taxation and more taxation. The truth of the matter is that Belizeans will be paying for the incompetence of this Barrow administration and for the lack of vision of Mr. Barrow.

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Sleight of hand…

In his budget, the Prime Minister of Belize is attempting a herculean sleight of hand. In one hand he is offering some trifles like income tax exemption for those making less than $500 (he promised less than $650 in the UDP manifesto) and $4million to youth and women in need. That is all Dean Barrow wants you to see. He wants you to be dazzled and blinded and pathetically grateful for those piddling plums. Because what he doesn’t want you to realize is that his other hand is digging greedily into your pockets, our pockets, for an additional $109M. You do the math. He is offering $4million a year (nobody knows how it will be disbursed, by the way) and taking away $109M. That’s the truth. We told you the Prime Minister’s budget was a joke. $4M a year for the seriously poor works out to something like 7 cents a day – like I said, you do the math.

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A damned disgrace…

Somebody asked me just yesterday if I thought that the Prime Minister was personally involved in some kind of shady deal with the oil company. See, the person figured that was the only explanation for Mr. Barrow’s treatment of that company. The thing is, Mr. Barrow’s big taxes will all cripple Belizeans. His whopping increase in GST will hurt us across the board. His 300% business tax on BEL will kill us when we get our electricity bills. Mr. Barrow is expecting Belizeans to come up with an additional $109M this financial year, and do you know how much of that is coming from the oil company – $1.8M. That’s right, $1.8M. Mr. Barrow most apologetically revealed that he will be levying a fee of $1 per barrel of oil pumped out of our ground. But Mr. Barrow was not so apologetic when he hammered us with a $1 fee per gallon of fuel at the pumps. So we poor Belizeans are taxed $1 per gallon (and that will surely increase) while the big oil company which is boasting of a bonanza all the way to the bank will be taxed $1 per barrel. Go figure. You know what, thinking about it, the person I was speaking to may just be on to something. That’s the only explanation.

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Waste of time CitCo…

Belizeans really do not want to hear one more s@#t about or from this incompetent and corrupt UDP City Council. Everybody in the streets believes the Mayor is a thief, even before the audit came out which proved that big money had been misappropriated from public coffers. The corruption is bad enough, but then there is the issue of incompetence. Not one damned thing has come out of City Hall since 2006 when the UDP took over there. Not one project, no infrastructure, no social programmes, nothing! The only thing which seems to have come out of City Hall is Zenaida’s mansion. Serious! The city is a mess. All we’ve gotten out of City Hall is rubbish, no pun intended. This latest thing where seven councilors are warring against the Mayor and three of her Moyalists is just more crap. If there was anything being done for the city we could excuse a little infighting and even call it healthy differences of opinion. But this is not that. For all Belizeans care, Mayor Zenaida and every one of the bunch in City Hall can get to walking.

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No distractions…

One person who is ecstatic about the ruction inside City Hall is the Prime Minister. See, he is taking so much flak for his bogus budget that he is happy for any distraction. And everybody knows that the bunch of clowns inside City Hall is good for a laugh, if nothing else. But no such luck, Mr. Barrow. Belizeans won’t be distracted from the fact that you plan to tax us $109M to pay for your incompetence. We will pay now, Mr. Barrow, but you’ll pay in the long run. No doubt about that.

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