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Economy - $160 million spending hole in the PLP’s election Platform
Sunday, December 16, 2007
By Dr. Grant Gibbons, JP, MP United Bermuda Party
The PLP’s reckless splurge of spending promises could cost the Bermudian tax-payer an extra $160 million - and Dr Brown and his colleagues are refusing to tell us how they will pay for them.
These extravagant promises have been plucked out of thin air to win votes and the PLP are fully aware that they cannot deliver on them without a huge rise in tax bills.
To put this in perspective, in the 2007-08 Budget, the PLP pledged an extra $32.6 million in current account spending. We estimate the pledges they have unveiled in this platform – taken with the costs of cleaning up Morgan’s Point – come to almost $160 million of new spending.
That means the PLP is promising to increase spending by almost 500% just to win an election. That doesn’t even include multi-million dollar capital projects.
It is desperate, it is dishonest and it goes to an issue at the heart of this election: whether you can trust the PLP to do what they say.
Dr. Brown and his colleagues have been evasive when asked how on earth they are going to pay for policy promises such as free medical coverage for all seniors and free day care for all Bermudian children.
There are two reasons why the PLP won’t tell Bermudians how much these programmes cost.
The first is that they probably don’t know because they appear to have been making it up as they go along.
The second is that they know they cannot deliver these grandiose promises without an unprecedented rise in tax-bills for Bermudian voters.
When former Health Minister Patrice Minors was asked how their day care programme for children would work, she replied: “I don’t know the specific criteria and the details how it will be rolled out.”
And when Dr Brown was asked how much the programme would cost, he said: “We don’t have a figure yet, but guess what? Whatever it costs, we’ll do it.”
The Premier’s press secretary Glenn Jones has suggested the PLP’s free bus and ferry plan will be funded in part by “private investors with an interest in making the roads less congested”.
Do the PLP seriously think Bermudians are gullible enough to believe the private sector will pick up the tab for their spending plans?
The Premier of Bermuda, with an army of civil servants at his disposal, doesn’t know how much his headline-grabbing platform will cost.
The United Bermuda Party is a fiscally responsible party that looks after the tax-payers’ dollars.
That’s why we’ve done the calculations, and can tell voters these new PLP spending pledges could cost almost $160 million:
FutureCare: $64 million per year Free buses and ferries for all: $9 million per year Free day care for all Bermudian children: $33.5 million per year Free Bermuda College tuition: $3.35 million per year 500 interest-free loans for first time buyers: $25 million Clean-up of Morgan’s Point: $25 million. Note to Editors:
Here’s how we’ve worked out the PLP spending pledges:
FutureCare: We have taken the average annual individual health care claim (approximately$10,000) by a person over 65 and multiplied it by the number of people over 65 (more than 6,400 in Census 2000) to get $64 million
Buses and ferries: The annual revenue from bus and ferry fares is $9 million in2007/08.
Free day care for kids: According to Census 2000, there were 3,350 Bermudian kids aged 0-4 who would be eligible. Multiply this by $200 a week and day-care costs per child equals $670,000 a week. Multiple this by 50 weeks a year, gives $33.5million.
500 interest-free loans: A 10% deposit on a $500,000 home is $50,000 multiplied by 500 equals $25 million.
Morgan’s Point clean-up: Consultants JA Jones Environmental Services Company estimated in 1997 that the clean-up costs would be $15 million. Taking into account inflation and contingency planning for unexpected additional problems, we think $25 million is now a reasonable figure.
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