It’s the end of the 2007 debate of finance ministers and in
my opinion Mr. Shaw has failed to adequately explain how the JLP’s manifesto is
going to be funded.
His continued assertion that the JLP will grow the economy
and fund it through the commensurate increased tax collection is naïve at best
and disingenuous at worst.
The fact is that for maybe as much as the first 2 years of a
new JLP government the investments that will be flowing moneys into the tax
coffers will be the investments created under the PNP government as it will
take at least that long for any significant new investment to take root.
Also if there is a change of government prudent investors
are going to go into a holding pattern until they can see the ‘lay of the
land’, which means some planned investments on the drawing board as we speak
will be delayed, a situation that may also be further exasperated by a
government hell bent on expanding expenditure – a move which would be popular
with the electorate, but may be less so with investors and could in fact see
the government having to bump up the interest rates they are currently
berating.
So lets be realistic, finance is after all a logical
dicipline, the JLP’s promises cannot be funded without new taxes or abandoning
existing projects and activities, lets call a spade a spade. 
