Budget day

For those of you who've been anxiously waiting, today is budget day.  Unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to put together a full preview of what we'd hope to see but might as well throw out a few thoughts.

What we noted back in October is that we'll be keeping an eye on immigration receipts as a possibly early indicator of job loss/growth in 2009.  It'll be interesting to see the comparison as an estimation of how well or poorly we did for jobs in 2009 and what it means for our recession.

Ultimately though Ms. Cox has a terribly difficult job in putting together this budget given spending was high in the boom period and now we have little cushion.

What we're looking for is limited or no tax increases as higher taxes at this rather dire time could only deepen and prolong this recession.

We're also looking for reasonable borrowing.  It's inevitable that we'll need to borrow to cover our cash flow difficulties and it is a hope that we keep this as small as possible.

Finally hopefully some bold plans are put forth to cut costs and wasteful spending.  Eg. Cut back on consultants. Institute a hiring freeze.   Find ways to ensure departments cut back without cog in the wheel cop outs.  Reduce unnecessary or unrealistic social spending.  Cut unnecessary and extravagant travel and get rid of ridiculous and unnecessary expenses like the fleet of GP cars.  Perhaps radical new concepts like car sharing to reduce the government fleet and associated costs.  Who knows what we can expect.  Let's hope for the best.

None the less, let's see it, hopefully in full detail even.

Comments

[Sean Soares]

Hi Denis,
It would appear that you and I are on the same mind. This budget has blown me away to the point that I wrote to the editor about it. As a business owner, I'm PISSED that payroll tax went up. Local business are struggling and now even more is demanded of them.

[Denis]

Haven't had much time to review just yet.

Prelim look over lunch it looks like payroll tax increases will funnel directly into inflation.

Foreign exchange tax is essentially a tax on Bermudians, since expats have the option to get paid in US (still dont' know what it will actually be)

Costs haven't been cut and in many cases budgets have increased.

Not very encouraging.

[Sean Soares]

No not at all. The immediate result of this is that people will have less disposable income which shrinks spending, which shrinks the economy further.

I"m also very concerned about the ability to take out from private pension accounts. This will lead to an issue down the road I believe whereas we will have a generation (Ours) of Bermudians who now live even longer, thus stretching our pension requirements even further. With less in there, thanks to the ability to borrow from it, this will potentially mean that we have to rely more on Government coffers and thus putting more straing on our children (Given also the fact of the rather large debt they will have to pay thanks to all the borrowing!). This budget is a receipe for disaster in my opinion.