And while the Prime Minister had little to say, Opposition Leader Dean Barrow called the new budget a wreck and said the government must resign.
Dean Barrow, Opposition Leader
"Its all confirmation of what we have long suspected that the taxes would be horrendous and intolerable and that the burden that people would be asked to be bear is absolutely insupportable."
Jules Vasquez,
However but you all have to be of two minds today because obviously we are facing an imminent balance of payment crisis, a default crisis, if the government does not raise this additional revenue. And you to the crowd are endorsing a national shutdown, which would immobilize the government and force Belize into a sovereign default, perhaps, and certainly a balance of payments crisis.
Dean Barrow,
"I don't know that it would go that far but there is a simple answer to all this. If the government were to resign, Jules I am telling you that a new government, not necessarily a UDP government, a new government with a fresh start could do things that this government is simply unable to do. Even in terms of accessing new money. Even with respect to borrowing not with the punitive rates of interest that for example the new borrowing they are telling us about will come with. So you can't lose sight of the fact that we are in this mess because of these people and that there is no way, no matter what they do, they can take us out of this mess."
"I don't care how you slice this, what we are being asked to pay is intolerable. They will not get what they are projecting, that is another thing. There is a point, as we all know, at which the law of diminishing return steps in. We saw last year for example with the land tax which was projected to yield $15 million, it is down to something like $4 million. So what do you think will happen? Business people will in fact pay at the rate they are demanding or they will find ways not to pay or if they do pay, won't they have to downsize and fire people? It's not going to succeed, that's the bottom line. So even if what we would like to see happen results in a fracturing of government and any kind of fragile national consensus they are trying to build, that is the way it must be. There has to be a fresh start. There has to be some start of new construction rising from the wreckage this government has created."
