Be radical – but do stay in touch
IF POLICY & Resources members don't want to turn this States term into a ‘zombie government’, then it is entirely appropriate that they should be talking about ‘radical’ proposals to start increasing how much tax they intend to take off our community to address the looming ‘black hole’ that deputies voted to ignore last month.
Sadly, it also demonstrates the poverty of the thinking shown so far this political term.
Most of us, and, it seems, all of the States, now recognise that our government, our island, is in financial difficulties. So it’s even harder to understand now why, instead of making relatively modest efforts to raise taxes over the past two years, P&R instead presented largely giveaway Budgets, inviting a totally unrealistic false narrative in the minds of islanders.
Radical proposals are all very well. In fact let’s have a full menu of revenue-raising ideas – it would give government a good steer on what the public (and their representatives) might swallow, and what they won’t.
But the committee must also learn from its defeat, think about the steer it has been given by colleagues and the public over the past few months, and move in that direction, not just raising cash, but also saving it.
P&R won’t be judged on how ‘radical’ its proposals are – but on how well they complement the necessary direction of travel.