Who do we have to be for Govt to listen?

THE EDITOR: The Government, at every opportunity it gets, seeks to cast blame on its immediate predecessors for its dismal performance as far as the economy is concerned. It refuses to reassess its self-defeating fiscal policies.

Just about every frontline minister, whenever an opportunity presents itself, goes off on a tangent about the last government’s “profligacy” and reckless spending.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s simplistic advice continues to be one of foreboding and doom, ever reinforced by admonitions to one and all to “tighten your belts.”

In spite of the significant differences that exist between how one manages personal versus public finances, the minister has adopted a similar “belt-tightening” approach to public finance management.

The State cannot “cut back” expenditure if people are indeed taking his advice and are themselves cutting back on their spending. Should this happen, it would result in a dramatic fall in national income with resulting reduced tax revenues.

The imposition of that kind of “austerity” would realise its inevitable self-fulfilling goal: an ever-shrinking national income that renders the country’s debt unpayable. This has been the pattern over the past 24 months and Imbert is doing the same thing while expecting a different result.

While local economists continue to “advise” — at least according to media reports — that the Government should make deeper cuts on the expenditure side, conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the worst thing a country can do is to reduce government expenditure during a recession.

If my memory serves me correctly, even the IMF admits the folly of drastic expenditure cutbacks and the implementation of austerity during periods of national recession.

I take the liberty of repeating a quote from Yanis Varoufakis and warn our self-serving politicians that Catherine the Great once said that “if you cannot be a good example then you will have to be a horrible warning.” Imbert with a condescending attitude that has become so much a part of him will no doubt ask who do I think I am.

During the Greek financial crisis, one of its parliamentarians, on his way to vote to accept another senseless bailout from the oppressive “troika,” repudiated the advice of a woman who shouted, “You have no right to do this. Just vote no!” He responded, “Who are you to judge what I should or shouldn’t vote for?” The young woman responded, “Who do I have to be?”

Many of us in this country who daily remonstrate with the current batch of indignant parliamentarians on the ruling Government bench who are hell-bent on walking us into a debt prison in spite of our objections to their inhumane and senseless policies, can ask that very question over and over: who do we have to be before you listen?

STEVE SMITH via e-mail