CI government just doesn’t get it

I have been watching with absolute amazement the machinations of the party in power and its leader Mckeeva Bush. I must say that Mr. Bush is without question, a consummate politician in every sense of the word. As a cure for the economic crisis, he is now proposing to reduce government employment from I believe 8,000 as it now stands to a bit over 7,600 and take five years to do it. WOW. That comes to about 1-1/2 per cent a year 

By raising the possibility of an income tax, or as he would call it a community enhancement fee, (he’s even better than Bernanke with his “Quantitative Easing”), he knew from day one it would never get it passed into law. By making the proposal, he has accomplished what he really set out to do, namely: 

Convince the general public that government has a revenue shortfall and that taxes have to be raised to meet the problem. He gave his word to London didn’t he? In this regard I believe he has accomplished his real reason, for purposely creating the furor that his proposal has engendered. The proposal should really be called what it really is, a smoke screen. 

By his actions he has thrown the ball into the private sectors’ court by promising to withdraw the proposed tax and in essence said, “If you’re so damn smart, you come up with the money!” The private sector took the bait “hook, line and sinker” and never realised that they are now answerable to the people to somehow make up the shortfall. Instead of telling it the way it really is, the private sector has been suckered into the controversy and is now waiting to be reeled in by government.  

The private sector has been given an enormous opportunity to prove how smart they really are by showing government just how stupid they are. They can turn this whole thing around into a win for the Islands, its people and for business and at the same time make government bite the bullet and do what should have done 20 years ago. 

Simple comparison 

To explain, let me make a simple comparison: If you were in financial trouble, would you go to your neighbours and ask them to pay for your mistakes? We all know what they would say. What if you then demand that they pay? This is what government is doing, and they see nothing wrong with it.  

You see, in the eyes of government, it is always right and always smarter than the general public. It knows invariably what is best for the people, far better than they do themselves.  

What government doesn’t seem to get is that, like you and I, they must bring expenditures in line with the funds available. Increasing revenues by taxation has never been an answer to any government’s problem.  

Government needs to look at the core reasons for their revenue shortfall rather than only look at getting re-elected by keeping the public fat and happy. You can do this only so long until the problem comes back to bite you. This is where we are now; scurrying around looking for a quick fix and finding none. Government then falls back to the fail safe position by increasing taxes. At what point does it stop? When the private sector money finally runs out, do they then come back with income tax? This time I believe the people should tell government they have had enough of their self-serving actions, which in the long term do nothing but bring hardship and greater and greater debt on the people. 

So smart guy how would you fix it? I would say look at the problem and come up with the simplest, most logical and least expensive way possible. This Government bleeds money and the fix is not to add more blood; it is to drastically stop the blood flow by putting a tourniquet on the offending body politic.  

Where does this blood flow need staunching? Well it sure doesn’t need to come from basic and important public services like education, healthcare, roads, important public works and the emergency services. It does need to come from unnecessary spending on such obviously unnecessary things like government owned corporations and entities, supplying goods and services, which should be supplied by the private sector not government. 

Worst offender 

The worst offender is Cayman Airways, which consumes yearly subsidies of over $25,000,000. This is not just the last few years, but over the last 35 years of its existence. Continuous losses have amounted over that period now heading toward a billion dollars. 

The Turtle Farm made money when it was in private hands. But government had to take it over, and now it consumes a yearly subsidy and hasn’t made money in years. If has become a true white elephant; or should I say a white turtle? 

The Water Authority, the government owned and operated water supplier to half of Grand Cayman is a perfect example. Please explain to the public why the government is in the water supply business in the first place? The other water company is privately owned, makes money, needs no subsidy and has supplied water at competitive prices for years. 

The Post Office has been losing money for years because of email and should be privatised as soon as possible. 

Even the Roads Authority has no need to be publicly owned; it should run as a privately owned company and be able to supply its services at much lower costs to the public. 

The Department of the Environment should be disbanded and garbage collection should be a privately owned entity. The other functions of the DoE should be taken over by an advisory committee answerable to the LA. 

Government offices 

A good example is our brand new government office building a creation of the previous administration. Why it was built during a period of economic downturn totally baffles me. It looks lovely, but it is far larger than needed. It consumed and continues to consume public funds at a time we could least afford it. Those funds could have been used to reduce the shortfall and we wouldn’t need to be running around creating new taxes. 

Again the previous administration created a fancy overblown school on Frank Sound Road. It started and then abandoned the project before its completion. If the funds were not available, why start a project like this in the first place? 

The list of ill thought out projects that were and are not needed are all around us. Vast plans with half vast thinking are the norm; not the exception. 

All that really needs to be done is to take these white elephant government services and either close them, sell them off, or turn them into publicly held corporations and let the people of the Cayman Islands buy stock in them. Get them off the public books where they now represent an oppressive unaffordable costs. 

The bottom line to all of this stupidity is we are now faced with a shrinking tax base and an enormous overhead, which was conceived of when the money kept rolling in and we didn’t have to think about paying for our profligacy as the money would always be there, right?  

Keep giving them bread and circuses and you will get their vote and you can keep the carnival going. Well its time to stop the Carnival. The Island is due for a good dose of painful but necessary austerity. We need to reduce taxation, not increase it. We need to start living within our budget, putting the savings away for the inevitable rainy day and stop living in a dream world. You can of course delude yourself and believe the contrary, but understand if you don’t stop the financial bleeding, eventually the patient dies. 

Jack Benz