Ronald Thwaites | Whose Budget is it anyway?

The 2022-23 Budget is edging close to a trillion dollars. The more than $900 billion is said to be nearly three per cent more than last year’s voted expenditure. Remember immediately that inflation is running close to seven per cent. This means that this year’s bigger money will buy less than last year’s smaller money. And then there’s the crawling devaluation, which makes it worse.

But whose interests does the Budget serve best? Are we spending the money in the best way?

For instance, the Ministry of Finance has promised more money to the public-sector workers. That’s fair, but how is it going to be afforded? More tax on what? Fuel? Don’t joke! And with what specific conditions for increased productivity? Or will it be more money for the same inadequate service to which we have become accustomed? Who will bear the brunt of taxes? The already-rich people or the chronically poor, as usual?

Let’s go behind the boring annual budget process. What is the end-game of economic policy in this our 60th year of nationhood? Is it to provide the basic services conducive to everyone becoming rich? Well, that would be a serious joke, wouldnt it? The way the system is set, we are becoming more unequal; more people marginalised. And don’t bother with the COVID-19 excuse, either. That only made a chronically bad situation worse.

CONCEPT OF RICHNESS

What is our concept of ‘richness’ anyway? If our children and youth follow the rulers and the media, we should all be striving for a big house, criss car, nuff US Dollars, a visa and more ‘tings’ – including, most likely, a gun. The stark absence of these are at the heart of our social distress.

So keep in mind the basic question as to where we want this Budget to be stepping towards. We consider, as a contrast, the clarity of the Chinese Communist Party on this same issue. They speak of “two no worries” – no worry about food and clothing. These are accompanied by “three guarantees” – compulsory, quality education; adequate healthcare; and safe housing.

Do we have the same aspirations? If we do, how is the State – our collective selves, administered by a government – using our money to help all of us achieve those ends?

Were we to ask ourselves if these are worthy objectives for our political economy, would it mean that we would be promoting the Chinese style of governance? Not at all. But these are basic human needs for citizens to flourish. And we say our system is superior. So shouldn’t we critique every Budget, indeed, the whole texture of state activity to see how we are achieving them? Don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting that the hurried and perfunctory consideration by the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee fulfils that role.

I consider a national Budget to be a sacred manifesto which should be grounded on a deep philosophical and theological ideology that promotes the respect and dignity of all citizens, especially the weakest. Do the Estimates of Expenditure tabled last week and the revenue measures to follow reflect those principles?

The concept of the common good needs to underlay every line in the Budget – not the demands of special-interest or partisan concerns. This approach stands at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, far removed from the amoral market fundamentalism, which seems to be this Government’s guiding light.

CURRENT HAPPENINGS

Several current happenings should be taken into account to provide a context for the budget exercise. For example, a recent US Narcotics Report tells their Congress that “Jamaican law penalises corruption but in practice, corruption remains entrenched and widespread even among senior government officials”. Can we refute that? If not, are we even ashamed? How does this charge figure in the big-big spend on national security and the pretty-pretty Throne Speech?

I am part of a group of educators who are analysing in detail the high-school examination results over the past few years. They are grim. Even though the standards have been watered down, and not all school-leaving students even take the exams, a very high percentage of passes in crucial subjects like mathematics are at the bare grade-three level. The failure rate is embarrassing.

Government is telling us, or we are telling ourselves, to suck up the hardship because one day soon (when?) there will be more jobs, greater productivity, and better opportunity to achieve Chinese-style ‘no worries’ and ‘guarantees’.

None of that can happen unless we acknowledge, ‘for the first time at last’, the connection between family stability and success in school. Until we acknowledge our children’s serious language problem; until we stop teaching children just how to pass exams, while ignoring the low level of reasoning skills apparent even in our better schools.

The current (and inevitable) cry for the postponement of the PEP exam is the clearest admission of the loss of almost two years of schooling, despite all previous denials. What is unforgivable is the unwillingness to repeat the classroom lessons lost. This comes at a heavy cost. There is ‘pity-mi-likkle’ evidence of how to meet this crisis in the proposed Budget.

MUCH MORE

There is so much more. The continued wasting of our land by bauxite mining, with uncertain returns and no capacity or will to enforce restoration, but apparently supported by both Government and Opposition. The half-hearted commitment to agricultural resurrection. The abandonment of efficient public transportation, and the waste of foreign exchange to import cars to burn the oil we can’t afford to buy.

Where do the wrenching, disruptive but transformational discussions on these and other issues figure in the Budget theatre now at hand? Are they even possible in an atmosphere of tribal partisanship?

What is the good life that Jamaicans seek? Are our aspirations fair and sustainable? Are we on the right path to achieve them? Here’s some good advice:

“Stand firm and do not take on yourselves the yoke of slavery a second time ... for the whole law has found its fulfilment in this one saying, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. If you go on biting and tearing one another to pieces, take care. You will end up in mutual destruction.” (Galatians 5)

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.