Live Updates: Opposition Reply To The Budget
[Updating] Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister of Finance David Burt is set to deliver the Progressive Labour Party’s Reply to the Budget in the House of Assembly today [March 3], responding to the 2017/2018 Budget delivered by Minister of Finance Bob Richards last week. We will provide updates as able below.
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Young man well done Mr Burt.. PLP PLP all the way!!!!!
“There is a high level of investment expertise in Bermuda, and the next PLP government will take advantage of this expertise by creating a “Bermuda Fund”. This fund, which will be seeded with a small portion of the pension funds that are under the control of the government”
THIS is a DISASTER! Don’t touch my pension…
No way, they’ll be in serious trouble if the do this.
Burt are you serious? The last time the PLP was trusted to watch our money you put us billions in debt and had $800 million dollars unaccounted for. No thanks. I would rather take my chances with my pension by gambling my money on Crown and Anchor. At least I know where it is gone when it is gone.
The PLP in 14 years managed to “loose” or “forget” where the spent $800 million dollars of the public purse! Do you have any clue as to what the amounts to per day! Doo the math. $800,000,000 /14/365 days. That equates to $185,000 a DAY that you “lost”. And you want me to trust you with my hard earned money.
Show us an example of how the PLP or the BIU have managed their money and grown.
STOP F’N telling us on what you could do and would do and show us examples of what you have done!
Completely missed that …
Yes they touched the money b4 then there was none.
Best thing about all these 100+ downvotes that happened instantaneously is now I can prove it’s a paid for service lmfao. You lot aint too smart are you on covering ya tracks, etc!
Thought the same thing… incredible.
So far, no apology from Burt over the mess the OBA inherited?
It would go a long way if the PLP just said sorry for wasting so much money.
Someone using a robot to “dislike” or just a bunch of muppets in Alaska Hall?
i was thinking the same thing..lol
Robot is working hard today!
uh ho..and he’s missed the point about the AC completely…
No, he just doesn’t want the people who will listen to him to understand what the AC can do for Bermuda and Bermudians. Harps on about how it’s costing $70m, but never says how it’s brought in and expected to bring in 4 fold that in economic activity. For years the PLP told us we had to spend money to make money, $400k on FBT for what… a $5k return… nobody knows becuase they weren’t expected to produce metrics… how many millions to Global Hue, for what return… again nobody knows because they weren’t expected to produce metrics or even able to fully produce accurate spending records.
Now he is promising to make sure all our students have laptops and WiFi… when we can barely fund the maintainence of the aging infrastructure that is there now… Does he even conceptualize what it would cost taxpayers to put wireless in just one school… then there is the up keep and replacement costs, licensing, software… Nice idea, good sound bite, but it would cripple the education budget at a time when we can’t afford to rack up another such deficit.
Election budget response, all sound bites, no real substance.
we are still waiting for an apology for their financial mismanagement during their last stint…..when ?
Never going to happen, they still haven’t apologized to Bill Hanbury for the constant maligning and bad mouthing they were involved in against him. Yet under his leadership, the BTA has managed to achieve something the PLP never could.
Why not stick with reality? There were more air arrivals with PLP than what Bill Hanbury has accomplished. The slump came during the recession but that’s over now and air arrivals still have not leveled out. The bigger cruise ships recently arriving have skewed the arrival numbers and made progress seem better than it really is. Bringing more middle class tourist in on cruise ships does not really help the economy because the only thing that they don’t have at hand on the ships is the beaches which is free for all. Even if we include transport cost for cruise arrivals we still end up with a loss because the tourist buses waiting to take the visitors are out of the tax payer’s pocket. Even when tourist from the ships wondering around Hamilton they are only window shopping because they get better deals from their other stops and the goods they buy are really local not stuff brought from their own country that shops pretend are local.
PLP: out of touch, out of time, out of credibility. They don’t have a clue and can’t be trusted to run (ruin) our country again.
Now that they’re talking about America’s Truck, I have a question, and it’s a simple one: AMERICA’S TRUCK…WILL it be good for Bermuda? It’s really dividing the island!
I completely agree…nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is talking about the implications of this on the people of Bermuda! It’s such a HUGE thing and it’s not being discussed, which is all the more troubling considering how much it is DIVIDING THIS ISLAND.
What the hell are you two talking about ? What ‘implications’?
Any other place in the world the size of Bermuda and with our debt load would be wetting their pants to have the opportunity to host this event , but not here in the land of the obstinately stupid.
Only here could it be turned into a faux race issue along with all this talk of ‘division’
I swear as time passes certain people here are getting more stupid by the day .
Think Alaska hall just hit you with a century of dislikes…Haha!
“This fund, which will be seeded with a small portion of the pension funds that are under the control of the government”
Actually Mr. Burt the Bermuda pension fund is already underfunded by several billion dollars. The Government knew that and acknowledged that some 10 years or more ago.
Are you proposing to take more money out of an overdrawn bank account?
Please somebody from the PLP explain how and why you are OK with them taking from the pension fund, disliking something is fine, but please explain why you feel this is acceptable.
“..Bermudians are tired of fighting, they are tired of bickering and they are tired of our division. They do not want an election campaign based on smears, innuendo and gossip…”
No sh*t Sherlock. But where does that come from? It’s all coming from the PLP, wrapped up in their 1960′s rhetoric and ideas. The party of the past.
Burt has outdone himself on his sycophantic political rantings this time.
“Would you hand a box of matches back to a pyrotechic, who says he did a good job the last time.” Best analogy yet for the plp.
I feel sorry and sad for the person that actually think the PLP will do anything positive for this country. Please PLP people hear that the first thing they are goi g to do is take the pension fund and louse it up what’s left of it anyway and than we have nothing. We will loose all credibility and turn into a third world country. I’m not thrilled with every decision the OBA has made,but we have come a long way in 4 years, they had nothing to start with, and as it’s already been said where’s the apology?
Yes they touched the money b4 then there was none.
Bye UBP/oba
Countdown to your end.
@shutthemdown Plz do not count your chickens yet every time Burt or Jamahl open their mouths the OBA get a few more votes. Do not order the caters or close C St. yet lest you get egg on your face again.
PLP Budget..
1 million to Beyoncé.
20 million port royal.
60 million dockyard marina.
30 million Berkley school
40 million court building.
Bermuda and its residence, the dirty end of the stick.
At least we were all making money back then. This David Saul style Scrooge budget does nothing to get the economy going, in fact it will put legitimate businesses out of business. In the meantime, I would urge the Hon. Shadow Minister of Finance to take a very close, hard look at some so called local businesses that have recently set up here.
“At least we were all making money back then”
There’s a rewriting of history, if you’re talking about the years of PLP misrule. The economy was tanking, by 7% a year at its worst. For 7 solid unbroken years. Jobs were leaving by the thousand. Houses and apartments were empty. Retail sales were falling, every month.
Now, there are new hotels coming online, new developments, investment, hotels are crowded, apartments are being used, houses are rented, and jobs are being created. Burt hates it.
Court Building $85M
Berkeley $50M
Port Royal $25M
Dockyard $65M
Beyonce etc $6M
Grand Atlantic $25M
New Airport plans $4M
Pay-off BAS-SERCO $5M
Consultants $600M
Sandys 360 $8M
TRAVEL $50M
NEW HOSPITAL $350M
TCD $15M
DEBT $1,400M
LAHEY $40M
UIGURS ???
Beyoncé was $4 million and Berkeley project I believe was more than $62 million OVER budget, plus 6.8 Million bond by BIU was “forgiven” by the BIU. Port Royal went ten of millions over budget and all they did was move dirt and plant grass. Nothing
The Public know better now.
Of course OBA would not spend that much on a public school. They are all about empowering foreigners to take the place of locals.
bring back bean!
So I think I understand it.
Increase taxes, Invent new taxes, tax more people, increase debt, borrow more, spend more, loot the pension fund, and scr..w around for years looking for 4th and 5th ‘pillars of the economy’. All while insulting and belittling the impact of the AC.
Too true, he simply couldn’t resist belittling the America’s Cup and all it has brought to Bermuda. Such a silly little man.
Yup, that about sums it up. Man the lifeboats!
are really to believe that we can trust these unprogressive anti equality folks with the kitty , I mean the past shenanigans are shocking the nonsense these fully justified investigatiosn are revealing shows not .
Nonce beard!
Listened to, or half listened to, some hours of the so-called debate yesterday. Why did I do that? The standard of speeches drops with year.
It is crystal clear that most PLP members have not even taken the trouble to read even a little of the budget let alone understand it. For most it was the same old hateful rants. Not one would take ownership of the debt that they put us in. Every one treated the PLP years as some sort of dream period that ended in December 2012 with the OBA given a nice clean financial slate as they were presented with in 1998.
The $500,000 plus per day debt financing expense does not exist, or is ignored, in their tiny minds. Mind blowing that their solution would be to borrow even more money to finance pet projects.
Budget is the last thing I want plp annnnnnnyyy where near.
We are in this position from their whojock!