Money from tax cuts expected to solve all problems

Being fairly politically savvy, the public is aware that money alone solves nothing. Government Ministers must work to establish and maintain the necessary infrastructures, systems and procedures. As such, it is the belief of many that this latest machination is the PNM administration’s ace for buying more time in office.

Moreover, it sends a subtle message to nationals to fend for themselves and to fix whatever problems they encounter — societal or otherwise. This is obvious since the authorities seem either too lazy or brain dead and not inclined to seriously begin addressing critical issues that have been long outstanding. This analogy becomes clearer when we recap a few of our nation’s ongoing dilemmas. The murder rate to date has long surpassed one a day and heinous crimes appear to be increasing rapidly in the face of anti-crime plan after plan after plan — all adding to naught. Government’s inferred solution; Using your surplus funds from the tax breaks you would be able to hire personal bodyguards and invest in bulletproof glass for your homes and cars. This is being made possible because your Government cares. TT health care reads like a historical disaster. Those issues range from inadequate equipment, unsanitary conditions and long waiting periods for patients at public hospitals. Additionally, the associated doctors and nurses never seem to be adequately paid despite working long hours and are forever disgruntled. Inferred solution: Using your extra money, check into a nursing home. Vagrants continue to defecate in our cities, menacing passersby and distressing motorists who must navigate around filth and verbal abuses. This situation has been festering ever since I can recall and no Government or Opposition has ever cared. Inferred solution: From January 2006, heavily invest in air fresheners and earplugs to combat the stench and ranting of vagrants. Poor old people and their families suffer daily, since the cost of care givers and accommodation at proper senior citizens homes are astronomical.

Inferred solution: Use your extra money to foot bills. The traffic situation has manifested into an unbearable burden with tempers flying more than planes.

What else can you expect from a situation where there’s a steady increase of drivers using virtually the same numbers of roads as their parents did 20 years ago? Inferred solution: Leave home earlier and buy stress tablets with your extra dollars. Almost weekly, scores of homes are inundated with murky water after a mere hour of steady rainfall — another Jurassic problem. Inferred solution: Use you surplus cash to buy boats or better yet, construct and live in boathouses. To many, the free tertiary education incentive is best aspect of the new Budget.

It involves giving more people access to higher education and so empowering more minds to undertake tasks of national interest of which the present regime appears clueless.

DEXTER J RIGSBY

Mt Lambert