Richard Sulík





What will be left after Fico

19. 10. 2009   |   translated by Marek Zemaník

Tomorrow it will be exactly a year to the day, since I wrote, at this same spot, that to estimate a 6.5% economic growth in October 2008 is nothing more than wishful thinking. As we already know today, the estimated growth turned out to be a decline of a similar percentage. Of course, neither Fico nor Počiatek are responsible for the economic decline, but they are responsible for the debt that they produce. To plan record breaking tax revenues and even higher expenditure based on an (already then) unreal growth, is unbelievably irresponsible and the result is a debt Slovakia has never seen.



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More than 6 percent this year and almost 6 percent next year. The reason why 6 percent does not sound that terrifying is that the debt, brought on us by our government, is compared to the whole economy. That is like comparing the debt of your household to the income of all the households in your block of flats. Let us therefore try a different point of view: The tax revenue of the state for the year 2009 will be 8.3 billion euro and it will spend 12.5 billion euro. Logically this means that a debt of 4.3 billion euro is created (and since the GDP of Slovakia is roughly 70 billion euro, the debt rate is 6% of the GDP). Can you imagine that? Your household as a monthly income of 650 euro, but you spend 1000? Month after month? Logics and common sense tell us that if the state takes in 8.2 through taxes, it should (at least in the long run) spend 8.2 not 12.5 billion euro. Next year will be the same. Our government again counts on increased tax revenue, from 8.2 to 8.6 billion euro. On the other hand it does not count with an overall decrease in government spending, which means the debt will only be slightly lower, that is 3.7 billion euro. Obviously, only if the tax revenue rises for real, which does not have to be the case at times of crisis. Further years with this government will be under the sign of debt, because these 'socially oriented' cannot manage finances. They can only give away other people's money and indebt us and our children. When, one day, our Prime Minister goes to retirement, people will be asking what he left behind. People will have long forgotten about his sweet social-romantic blabber or how he outplayed Hríb under the lamp. Maybe they will remember how he promised the world, but never delivered. And they will definitely remember that he left a giant heap of debts behind.


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