LOL

LOL

yet only 2-3 policies have been revisited

foriegn spouse/land thing
payroll tax increase
maybe one other

you need to get a grip and stop being such a cheerleader with out knowing the facts papa

do some more history mate ubp took care of thier own
oba doing the same thing

you all cant even address your fellow bermudians who support the plp with any respect

you are forgetting one valuable lesson here

you cannot call people blind sheep one day
and expect that they will forget this on election day

you cannot insult 6500 government workers by calling them lazy
then months later expecting they and thier family to vote for you

but given the history of your party
it doesnt surprise me

add that up and see how many people your party keeps insulting by saying lazy government workers etc etc

The reality is that the government is both holding demand above potential (it will eventually fall) and also reducing future potential by the amount of the interest payable on that debt each year. So the long-run is twice as bad as taking the inevitable fall in the short-run.

LOL

LOL

And the PLP are those for whom life has gotten better. No-one else. Every conceivable measure points to failure.

Now they are robbing the pension fund.

For any publicly owned company, it would mean a change of the entire management, and possible bankruptcy. For a Bermuda PLP government, it’s the usual state of affairs, and the idiot supporters write on here saying “they are audited, everything must be ok”.

You wouldn’t normally get an audit where the auditor talks about “serious deficiencies of internal controls” for 4 years running. Heads would roll.

First, it’s about 6,500 working for government. It was about 4,500 until about 7 years ago, but now under the inefficient PLP we “do less with more”, so it’s 6,500.

If you think each civil servant is supporting more than 2 adults who otherwise have no income, that means there are 13,000 unemployed Bermudian adults in Bermuda. If you are right (and we all know what an intelligent and clever person you are), shouldn’t you be going after the current government for understating unemployment by 12,000 or so?

Your assumptions:

1. Everyone who critiques the Govt MUST be an OBA supporter (False)
2. Everyone who is supported by an individual who works for Gov (not the PLP) will vote for the PLP

Many people are able to think for themselves, irrespective of your assumptions above. You make a serious mistake in thinking that everyone here who is dissatisfied with the PLP must be OBA.

Think on that.

Key words there “clean audit”. Where did your quote come from?

5000 persons work for bda government
these 5000 persons support on average @ least 2 other persons
so just hazarding a guess
thats 12-15000 voters

with the degrading comments spewed on here about government workers
how many of those 12000-15000 will vote for oba?

What a mess you lot have made. And you have no idea at all what to do about it.

Regardless, cannot buy the arguement that there are lots of people who are currently better off. Some – I have no doubt.

Ya’ll just don’t get it .

Thought the Government didn’t technically “save” during the good times, they didn’t exactly spend wildly. This fiscal discipline allowed the government to borrow money during the recession that they wouldn’t have been able to borrow if they spent wildly during the good times.

Also, i think its inaccurate to say the PLP thought the Good times would never end. In 2008, both the Minister of Finance and the Shadow Finance Minister admitted that there were dark clouds on the horizon. No one (Bermuda or Worldwide) in Feb of 2008 however thought the entire financial system may collapse.

Our Debt didn’t start its scary (Yes I am a PLP supporter) shooting upwards until 2008, however at that point revenues were already under pressure. I say all of this to say, the myth that the PLP spend wildly during the good times is just that, a myth.

Governments are not people. Business cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle) happen where economies expand and contract. When economies contract, government’s deploy typically increase spending to compensate for the private spending that you mention (business cutbacks & household belt tightening).

As Bermuda doesn’t print money, the only way the government can provide stimulus is via spending. That spending must be paid for by borrowing the funds to spend on Stimulus.

Also, a part of that same stimulus is not cutting back on services (jobs) during a recession as you will only make the recession worse by putting more people out of work which reduces private demand which reduces tax revenue which then causes the government to lay off more people.

The Government by and large adopted the right policy, the challenge is the recession lasted longer than anyone in the world imagined it would, and the ability to continue to borrow is questionable.

I hope that helps.

“The financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the
financial position of the Consolidated Fund of the Government of
Bermuda as at March 31, 20111, and the results of its operations, the
changes in its net debt, and its cash flows for the year ended in
accordance with public sector accounting standards generally accepted
in Bermuda and Canada.” – Heather Jacob’s Matthews – Bermuda Auditor General.

Those are Audited figures.

Unfortunately this question addresses where we have ended up. If fails to address how we got in this position and that is the source of people’s frustration. How you have framed it suggests that the Govts hands are tied and somehow gives the impression that they are victims who are trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

The truth is that they have very much caused these issues that we find ourselves in and there is no accountability for it. The reality is that no one can live beyond their means and if they do, there is a reckoning. When a Govt lives beyond its means, it had to make meaningful cuts and I believe that those cuts should start with the Govt. What is happening at the moment is that the cuts are being spread over the people yet little is changing in the spending habits of this Govt.

Example- I can only imagine what the cell phone bills are all who have a Black Berry on and functioning during international travel. Data packages are extremely expensive but there are things that you can do to minimize that cost ..like turn the data off until you have a wifi signal to utilize. Obviously that wouldn’t work for all members travelling but certainly everyone travelling doesn’t have to incur a $500+ bill for the sake of recieving emails 24/7. That would be an example of cutting costs with the Govt. I would LOVE to know how much the cell phone bills are…