That 10-week gap before the tax reform debate restarts might become very painful.
Every day now, the relentless drip drip of campaigners against a GST continues. The level of online support secured waxes and wanes… it was remarkable just how quickly Mr Camp’s strident social media campaign against last Monday’s headline died away, before we had a chance to publish his letter ourselves. Was he silenced by reason? Got bored? Or simply moved on to tackling the next perceived weakness in the tax reform package?
The email pile-on he encouraged his followers to pursue against me saw all of two messages arrive in my inbox.
Neither had anything to add to the debate, or the complaint.
The criticism of the headline on our story of last Monday seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the amendment approved by the States. The amendment did not propose a spending freeze only on committees’ general revenue budgets.
The direction applied to all public expenditure, including the island’s social security schemes, which primarily fund the States pension and nursing and residential care. During debate on the amendment, and in interviews following debate, the president of Employment & Social Security clearly said that drawing the social security schemes into the proposed spending freeze could result in reductions in both the weekly rate of the States pension and the funding of beds in care homes.
The president of the Health & Social Care Committee said that the proposed spending freeze could result in delaying or withdrawing some medical services. Our headline – ‘States pension faces cuts if deputies freeze budgets’ – was an accurate summary of the story which reported the speeches and interviews of the committee presidents.
We will continue to report both sides of this debate. The only ‘side’ we will take is that ultimately, we need to do what is best for Guernsey.
As it stands, this ongoing GST debate is close to unwinnable for either side. Public finances and the demands on them are clearly unsustainable from demographics alone. The public rightly want to ensure that the States doesn’t waste money – but that is tough to secure, particularly when every effort to shut something down is met with howls of complaint.
Yes, frequently such moves (cuts by another word) are aimed at the wrong target – deliberately perhaps?
But to resolve this, once and for all, both sides need to shift positions. Maybe it's not this change, but change IS inevitable. There is no news emerging, only noise. And entrenchment merely leads to stasis.
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