Vexed Bermoothes

Let’s face it, the PLP were not elected on the basis of their competence to govern.  They were elected because of what they stood for.

After 12 years in power, the chickens are coming home to roost from the PLP’s exuberant spending and lack of accountability.

Here is Cox’s Dilemma:

The size of Government has ballooned.  They can no longer control it … there is no leadership so it interferes where it should let the market work, and fails to help where it should.  Even worse, it costs more than we can afford … hence the creeping $1.2 billion in debt we are saddled with.  Even with the haphazard cuts in our budgets, it costs nearly half a million dollars a day to run Government than we collect in taxes.  Government needs to shed civil service workers and fast.

But it can’t because a succession of PLP ministers has so offended our international clientbase that our private sector has shrunk.  This means less tax dollars to support Government, less ability for the private sector to hire Bermudians, and a hell of a lot less money trickling down through our economy.

Paula Cox needs to shrink Government but can’t – in fact she’s even giving pay increases!  Paid for with debt!   And she needs to expand the economy, but can’t bring herself to put down the “term limits” dog she introduced.

There are rumours of a mass exodus of expats this summer.  And of additional companies pulling out.   And of banks quietly starting to repossess houses.  I fear the economic pain is only beginning.

I used to think that Bermuda would go through a rocky period until the PLP learned the ropes.  And for the first few years, that looked possible.  But then the Ewart a-go-go years happened (with Paula’s support I might add).  They have blown it.  I have no confidence at all in this Government to turn it around.

At the rate we are going, we may soon have a 1998 sized economy that is struggling to support the masssive debt taken on during the past few years.