Gordon Robinson | Eliminate the political middlemen

Well, whaddaya know?

Americans flocked to the polls on Tuesday (many mailed in before then) and roundly rejected the Big Lie. As Joe Scarborough coined on Wednesday morning “Dobbs, Deniers, and Donald lifted the Democrats”. At time of writing (Wednesday), the US Congress remains anybody’s race, but it appears that Democrats should hold on to the Senate (perhaps with a slightly improved majority) while Republicans are likely to regain the House but with a significantly smaller-than-predicted majority.

But the overall result, in my opinion, doesn’t really matter. These are the results that do:

• Election deniers, endorsed by Donald Trump, in battleground contests Republicans expected to swing for them (with the possible exception of Kari Lake in Arizona’s gubernatorial contest that is still uncalled) were swept (or as Americans call it, “went oh-for”). What the Disney Duck’s myopic narcissism failed to understand is that constantly alleging that a free and fair election was fraudulent is a grave insult aimed directly at American voters. On Tuesday, they punished his surrogates for it.

• In every state with abortion on the ballot, voters chose abortion rights over right-wing dictatorship (fuelled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe v Wade) by a landslide.

• Even if the Republican Party wins the House, as seems likely, their slim majority will keep Speaker-elect Kevin McCarthy on a tight Trumpism leash as it’ll be a battle to circumvent Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s crazy caucus or the too many election deniers remaining in the Senate who didn’t have to face the electorate this time around.

So incremental progress was made as the embarrassing possibility of another Maralardo presidency, or even personal political influence, seems eliminated. Contrary to antsy Democrats’ oft-expressed fears, democracy wasn’t on the ballot because the ballot itself WAS democracy that actually elected rational candidates from both parties and rejected extremists. But the struggle needs to continue and intensify. Unprincipled racist policies scorned by the results are likely to live on unless moderate Democrats and Republicans work together, daily, on the ground, at school boards, city council meetings, etc, to eradicate that bit of excrement on Florida’s sole (see what I did there?) forever.

I confess I discarded my standard don’t-care attitude to all American elections to root against two candidates only. First and foremost, there was Mehmet Oz, whose disgusting denigration of his opponent’s medical condition and his wacky, quacky remedies turned my stomach.

Then there was that imbecilic, robotic Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who allowed the Republican Party to typecast him as a caricature of Stepinfetchit, thus supporting Trumpist teaching that blacks are ignorant AND stupid. At least Lincoln Perry, who began in vaudeville and became the first black actor to have a successful film career, used his character, Stepinfetchit (“the laziest man in the world”), as farce. Btw, Joseph Perry, Lincoln’s father, was Jamaican (although he told a US census taker he was from the Bahamas). Lincoln’s mother was from Nassau. Both were West Indian immigrants. Lincoln was born in Florida.

Doctor Oz was trounced by John Fetterman on election night. Raphael Warnock polled more votes than Walker but faces a run-off election on December 6 (probably with his party already having secured 50 Senate seats). I’m confident he’ll retain his seat by a margin of at least five per cent.

WHY SHOULD IT BE ANY DIFFERENT?

But enough about American politics. Jamaicans can stop holding their breath waiting on American election results to affect their daily lives positively. CIA interference with Jamaican politics took place while Jimmy Carter was president. Bill Clinton worked assiduously to overturn an agreement guaranteeing Caribbean banana farmers a share of the European Union market and imposing quotas on bananas from Central and South America. The World Trade Organization largely supported Washington’s view that the preference unfairly restricts American companies’ access.

Under George W Bush and Barack Obama, the US Treasury Department allowed the IMF to impose the most crippling austerity measures on Jamaica that ensured steep declines in Jamaicans’ living standards for decades to come. Jamaica was put on America’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list under President Trump in February 2020. The FATF cited, inter alia, strategic deficiencies in Jamaica’s countering of money laundering and terrorist financing. Trump single-handedly destroyed Jamaica’s relationship with Venezuela to support a phantom “interim president” who never faced a Venezuelan electorate.

Why should Joe Buddy or his political party be any different? As long as we allow FBI operatives into Jamaica to conduct “joint” operations with the JCF/JDF against alleged money-laundering drug kingpins, Buddy will continue to smile at us through his “darkers” but do nothing about the flood of American guns into the island causing mayhem, death, and destruction of Jamaica’s social fabric.

And, wait for it! Get ready for President Desantis in January 2025!

Speaking of the rending of Jamaica’s social fabric, I see that the exemplary auditor general has once again exposed feckless government spending by some agencies, including the HAJ and the Health Ministry. Folks, it’s time our political parties stop talking through both sides of their mouths about how much more ethical they are than their opponents and how much better it’ll be if only we vote for them. This epidemic of handing out government contracts like confetti and paying out multimillions to arbitrary contractors for uncertified work is a fundamental national problem. Now we hear that “care packages” paid for by our tax dollars were being distributed like paper towels in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria without any MOH database or other proof of delivery? And MPs are now “allotted” extra tax dollars to give out Christmas Bullo work?

What the actual blurdnaught? MPs are legislators not godfathers, government contract awarders, or Santa Claus! This fundamental flaw in Jamaica’s governance has been with us for 60 years. Why would it change with yet another change of government?

The real problem is the farcical, inequitable way government collects taxes and gives us NOTHING in return. We the poor and vulnerable (wealthy corporations wriggle through every available loophole) pay 25 per cent income tax, 15 per cent GCT, 5.75 per cent education tax, three or six per cent NIS, Customs duty, SCT, gas tax. and God knows how many more hidden taxes.

What do we get in return? Our taxes are supposed to fund healthcare, yet the financial hardships suffered by hard-working Jamaicans who fall ill are monstrous. Government hospitals (including St Joseph’s, which is categorised as a “public/private” institution, and the UHWI – a regional institution) charge exorbitant fees in addition to the tax dollars they receive from the Government.

FREE HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION

Why can’t we have free healthcare across the board after fundamentally reforming our taxation system to ensure that the wealthiest pay the most tax?

The UK’s no-tax threshold is £12,750.00 (approximately J$2.5 million) after which tax rates increase gradually from 20 per cent (up to £50,270.00), then 40 per cent (up to £150,000.00), and 45 per cent (over £150,000.00). Their National Health Service is fully funded out of tax revenues and free to all. Additionally, the cost of drugs is lowered by the absence of enough private-sector competitors to drive prices up. English government-funded schools are free to all.

Finland has one of the world’s highest tax rates (averaging 39 per cent). But healthcare is free. No Finn goes bankrupt because he/she fell ill. Education is free in Finland even for international students. It’s the same in Denmark.

It’s past time Jamaica underwent radical reconstruction to eliminate the political middlemen guzzling in the trough of our tax dollars so we can enjoy free healthcare and free education as constitutional rights. We can afford it. The auditor general reported $90 million unaccounted for at the HAJ and $400m at the MOH. The MOH can claim emergency requirements regarding COVID quarantines. But there’s no excuse for not ensuring some form of procurement paper trail and ex-post-facto accounting even if there’s no time to bring in lawyers to peer over spectacles balanced on the tips of noses in order to prepare formal contracts dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”. It’s important to remember that you’re not spending your own money. You MUST have proper records or be vulnerable to suspicion (rightly or wrongly) of corruption facilitation for which accountability must reside somewhere.

The HAJ is another kettle of rotten fish entirely.

This tip of this iceberg has uncovered almost a half-billion tax dollars carelessly spent. So with a proper system of accountable governance. we can eliminate gravalicious trough-guzzling middlemen and provide free education and free healthcare directly, especially to the very young and the very old.

Peace and Love!

- Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com