Column: Talbot-Woolridge On Economy & More
[Opinion column written by Shomari Talbot-Woolridge]
The last few years have tested every economy on earth. A global pandemic, inflation not seen in a generation, interest rates climbing, supply chains breaking. No country has been spared, and small island economies have felt it hardest of all.
Some past administrations are remembered for a bad airport deal. For Morgan’s Point, guaranteed loans that left Bermudians holding the risk. For a credit rating cut on their watch. Those are legacies too. They are just not ones worth being proud of.
So whenever our finances get debated, ask the question that never makes the headline: compared to what?
Start with the number that should settle the argument. This spring, three of the world’s leading credit agencies reviewed our books and reached the same verdict. S&P lifted our outlook to positive. Moody’s upgraded us outright, our first upgrade in nearly a decade. So ask when our rating was last cut. In 2016, under the previous administration. In the space of ten years, one government had Bermuda marked down, and the PLP Government earned it back. That is not spin. It is the cold verdict of agencies whose entire job is to judge governments on the numbers, not the politics.
Here is what it took. A first budget surplus in over twenty years. Spending held in line. And the big one: under the leadership of Premier David Burt, the PLP Government is on track to wipe out just under twenty percent of our debt in one stroke at the beginning of 2027. A $605 million repayment, the largest in our history.
Now, some will say we got lucky. That the new corporate income tax simply showed up and did the work for us. That is not how any of this works. An opportunity only helps the prepared. A household drowning in spending is not saved by a raise; it just finds new ways to overspend. The reason this money is paying down debt instead of slipping through the cracks is that the discipline came first. Under Premier David Burt, the PLP Government balanced the budget and posted a surplus before a single dollar of corporate income tax was collected.
And that revenue was no accident either. The global minimum tax was coming whether Bermuda was ready or not. The only question was whether it would be collected here, by us, for us, or somewhere else, by someone else. We made sure it was here. While the United Kingdom was leaving the European Union, Bermuda did the opposite, working to keep our relationship with the EU strong because that relationship is good for Bermuda, and holding our standing across the region and beyond. We protected our place in international business, kept these companies on our shores, and built a regime that captures the revenue without driving them away. Call that luck if you like. I call it work. The PLP Government was ready.
Now set Bermuda beside everyone else who weathered those same years. Almost every government took on heavy debt to get through it, and many were downgraded for it. Even the largest economy in the world lost its last perfect credit rating. Bermuda was upgraded. Compared to what? Compared to nearly everyone. This Island did not just survive. It stood while bigger, richer places stumbled.
But let’s be real. Not every Bermudian has felt this yet, and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise. For a family still stretched thin at the checkout, a credit rating is a faraway thing. That is true. But it is also true that a great many Bermudians have felt the ground steady beneath them, and that the strength we have rebuilt is exactly what makes the next chapter possible.
A balance sheet was never the point. It is the foundation. It is what lets us invest in our people, and our people are the whole story. Bermuda was given no oil, no gold, no land to speak of. Our people are our only natural resource, and the return on that investment has outpaced anything the ground could ever have given us. Places blessed with far more have done far less. Strengthen our people and you strengthen everything. You carry the weight now so the ones who come after you never have to, and you hand the next generation a country stronger than the one we were handed.
So ask what this PLP Government’s economic legacy will be. The answer is not hard.
Not Morgan’s Point. Not the airport deal. Not a credit rating cut.
A surplus. Upgrades from nonpartisan international agencies. Our place in international business reaffirmed. And just under twenty percent of the national debt, wiped out in one stroke.
That is fiscal responsibility. That is a legacy worth leaving.
- Shomari Talbot-Woolridge
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