Dear Editor,
SN’s editorial of January 23rd on the 2023 budget was kind and gentle, an exercise in white glove delicacy. If we can’t care for our people, given our extraordinary times, then when? The really thirsty grasp for every budgetary droplet, but it is gone so quickly that nothing registers, little difference made. Last year, the tax threshold was increased by $10,000, this year by another $10,000. This is a deadbeat repaying debt a dime at a time. Now 12,000 pay zero taxes, the rest enjoy less leaving their paychecks. Three thousand in tax relief per month in Guyana’s glamorous age of oil has to be the pits. Better to craft a tax package that has these vital, helpful ingredients instead of the flakes of $10,000 tax ease, come up with a baseline of significance for bottom feeders, others.
Jump to $100,000 straightaway. Introduce a deduction per child of $10,000, (or $5,000) for each qualified dependent, including family elders. Throw in a marriage deduction. Instead of handing the “Because We Care” grants (billions) to the ministry, run it under the national tax system, as a child tax credit, income or no income. More money for the poor means a lesser slice for the private sector. Some-body had to lose; bottom feeders, again. The government may counter that inflation will intensify. I rebut by saying that without significant government cash inflows to the masses, food prices already shatter ceilings. I urge that the PPP consider this one, and exhibit the same dread about inflation woes.
The infrastructure boom has pushed up the price of materials astronomically; sand, stone, wood, other building components skyrocket. How about that inflation reality? What about anxieties about what this does to Guyanese with new house lots? Overnight, their mortgage falls short. The PPP leadership cannot be worried about one segment of inflation only; it must be honest: government’s efforts with infrastructure at accelerated speeds squeeze poorer Guyanese beginning to build. Still, Guyanese cheer. In societies blessed with this influx of oil dollars, the people neglected would not react calmly. The PNC had ideas about the $60 billion extra from high oil prices: channel to the poor as relief. What, and leave the private sector and contractor class short? Get outta here!
Separately, regurgitating textbooks theories/concepts helps few Guyanese. Real people are bleeding through their noses. Guyanese doing without are clueless (hazy) re inflation’s meaning. I define it from their perspective. To the poor man inflation means can’t buy; therefore, can’t have. Story done. Impressive is our learning about too many dollars chasing too few goods, purchasing power decline, demand-pull and cost-push inflation, and wages/income inflation. Observe the woman checking prices, then turning away emptyhanded, crestfallen. Inflation for her means telling her family: ‘this is all we have, let’s pray”; mothers steer inquisitive children away from embarrassing, humiliating answers. That is, we have to do without, because we can’t afford.
I reduce this to the reality of those Guyanese managing with overseas incomes. The dollar has appreciated/ revalued from 215:1 to 205/202:1. How-ever, 205 cannot buy what 215 obtained; and what was 215 now costs over 250. It is being on the wrong side of a landslide. Don’t cry for them, they can manage. The point is that some can regurgitate grand talking points in artistic detail, but to what point? Score points? Okay! But when that exercise in textbook grandeur is complete, too many are still scrambling to evade starving. Meanwhile, our infrastructure works are racing ahead, amid all these hungry people. Let’s hope they don’t get blazingly angry, which democracy is not the best brake system to slowdown.
I wonder if we are not building (gaining) the world-monuments, pyramids, towers-while losing our substances, our wisdoms and, in the process, our very souls. It’s alright to be a partisan. Just don’t be a pushbutton, turnkey one. That is, a mindless one. I leave on this note. Since the extra hand given by the PPP Government to pensioners, children, lower wage workers, healthcare workers and others are so fulfilling, then why that further $5 billion for cost-of-living measures? Naturally, that could be rationalized two ways. First, the PPP compassionately went to the lengths of reserving an additional $5 billion to lookout for the weak and vulnerable. Or, it ensured that money is at the ready to fund continuing self-enrichments.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
