WHERE HAVE WE HEARD THIS BEFORE?

Prime Minister Miller and her cabinet:

As Jamaica’s Governor General Sir Patrick Allen deliv­ers the throne speech, lay­ing out the raft of new ini­tia­tives the Government plans to under­take for the new fis­cal year, it seems Jamaicans have began to tune out the omnipresent promis­es and plat­i­tudes that are the hall­mark of the People’s National Party, and the Governing Administration of Portia Simpson Miller.

Jamaican media reports that the tra­di­tion­al throng of par­ty faith­fuls that had faith­ful­ly formed part of the land­scape dur­ing the tra­di­tion­al march down Duke street has thinned to a trickle.

The Observer inter­viewed one par­ty faith­ful who summed up this new real­i­ty this way.“Times hard and some peo­ple just can’t both­er any­more. It’s because of the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, that affect a lot of per­sons but you have the die-heart­ed (com­mit­ted) who are here rain, shine or hail,” the self-titled “full-fledged sup­port­er of the PNP,” told the Observer.“Times hard and some peo­ple just can’t both­er any­more. It’s because of the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, that affect a lot of per­sons but you have the die-heart­ed (com­mit­ted) who are here rain, shine or hail,”
the self-titled “full-fledged sup­port­er of the PNP,” told the Observer.more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​D​w​i​n​d​l​i​n​g​-​s​u​p​p​o​r​t​-​f​o​r​-​o​p​e​n​i​n​g​-​o​f​-​P​a​r​l​i​a​m​e​n​t​_​1​4​0​0​4​9​9​8​#​i​x​z​z​2​P​e​3​e​J​sMX

Opposition Leader Holness and oth­er MP’s:

The Opposition (JLP) Jamaica Labor Party has char­ac­ter­ized the throne speech as empty.

“I think the gen­er­al con­sen­sus is that there was noth­ing new or inspi­ra­tional in the speech for the aver­age house­hold­er, cit­i­zen or busi­nessper­son who [is] con­cerned about their coun­try. I did not see any­thing to sug­gest hope,” Holness told the Observer at the end of the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing at Gordon House.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​-​M​o​r​e​-​e​m​p​t​y​-​p​r​o​m​i​s​e​s​-​_​1​4​0​0​4​7​9​6​#​i​x​z​z​2​P​e​5​A​c​Mte

I am for­ev­er the opti­mist, I just won­dered to myself, “Are the Jamaican peo­ple com­ing to their sens­es? Could it be that they are start­ing to real­ize that their des­tiny lies with them and only them and not in Portia Simpson Miller and her brand of parochial base pol­i­tics? Many will laugh at me for dar­ing to dream that a peo­ple who char­ac­ter­ize them­selves as born PNP and Born JLP could be com­ing of age, with the real­i­ty that these politi­cians are in it for themselves.

To my doubt­ful friends I remind you that it was­n’t too long ago when blood ran like riv­er as soon as a new elec­tion cycle com­menced, not so any­more. Laborites and Comrades vot­ed and danced in the street togeth­er over the last two elec­tion cycles. Are we where we want to be as a peo­ple ? No! but I will take any­thing, I see this as a sign that the peo­ple are start­ing to real­ize that they have heard this song and dance before, year after year from both par­ties and yet their lives get from bad to worse.

Maybe, just maybe, the stran­gle-hold Miller and the People’s National Party has on the psy­che of the mass of une­d­u­cat­ed is break­ing. Maybe, just maybe hunger, depri­va­tion, sky-high food prices and elec­tric­i­ty bills and stag­nant low wages will break the fever. One won­ders what the vot­ers thought would have hap­pened this time, when after ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years of one par­ty rule and noth­ing good came of it but pain.
The solu­tion to our nation’s prob­lems lie with the Jamaican peo­ple, through hands and heart and com­mit­ment to nation build­ing. It cer­tain­ly does not lie in a pro­tract­ed shame­ful wait on a for­eign lend­ing insti­tu­tion for loans to get by.

It’s impor­tant for the Jamaican peo­ple to real­ize that over half of the coun­try’s income goes to debt ser­vic­ing. That is pay­ing inter­est on the debt the coun­try has already incurred, those pay­ments does not address the prin­ci­pal debt, just the inter­est pay­ments. Even as the coun­try engages in this unsus­tain­able prac­tice , it is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly seek­ing and tak­ing on even more debt, at that rate, soon all the coun­try’s earn­ings will have to go to pay­ing inter­est on its debt obligations.

The con­se­quence of this reck­less behav­ior is inevitable eco­nom­ic col­lapse. One thing is cer­tain, the Government of Portia Simpson Miller does not have the abil­i­ty to turn the coun­try around, sim­ply because they do not under­stand a mar­ket econ­o­my. They fun­da­men­tal­ly believe that it’s up to Government to han­dle the econ­o­my, of course, even if that was a good mod­el , they would be the worse pos­si­ble choice to do so, just look at their track record. The Government believes rais­ing tax­es brings more rev­enue, the reverse is true, it brings less.

Widening the tax base brings in more rev­enue, reform­ing the tax code, dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing crime, elim­i­nat­ing gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy, invit­ing and pro­mot­ing invest­ment and elim­i­nat­ing cor­rup­tion and divest­ing all Businesses in state con­trol. In oth­er words adopt­ing a mar­ket dri­ven , mar­ket ori­ent­ed econ­o­my, I will wait to see how long it will take for the peo­ple to come to their senses.