LAST THURSDAY, Finance Minister Omar Davis presented a budget in which he outlined that there would be no new taxes for this financial year.
However, while the nation breathed a sigh of relief that the Finance Minister did not introduce any new taxes to fund his $328 billion budget, we cannot ignore how it will be financed.
Firstly, while $155 billion will come from the existing taxes, a further $153 billion will come from borrowing. Now, it is this $153 billion that we as Jamaicans must be concerned about. Already, more two thirds of our earnings go towards debt repayment and based on Minister Davies budget, we should expect more or less the same in the upcoming years.
Quite frankly, while no new taxes is good news for those of us who pay taxes, we cannot help but wonder what this will mean for our children and grandchildren in years to come. Frankly, it means that they too will have foot Jamaica's debt burden although they are unaware of how the money was spent and what it was spent on.
In light of this, it is safe to conclude that we will never get out of our current problems for generations as succeeding governments will have to use a significant portion of our income to repay debts that were brought about by careless spending by their predecessors.
