Letter of the Day | Mark’s missed ‘Golding’ opportunity
Published:Saturday | March 16, 2019 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Outrage! That is the word on the lips of some in the streets re Mark Golding’s response to Dr Nigel Clarke’s stimulus package, which has trimmed down the tax juggernaut, not by one or two or any single digits, but a sizeable, by any estimation, $14billion.
What does Mr Golding’s mean response to a tax gift of this kind reveal?
For ‘each’ step of the way, the People’s National Party (PNP) seems to be making a series of serious and senior blunders, faux pas, that each time they open their mouth, they put their foot in it.
Embarrassing, when the evidence, blindingly obvious to many, would make any, even the visually impaired, remark: “Even I can see that.”
It is true that Mr Golding would have wanted to see, and have articulated, how ‘Santa Clarke’ should have unfolded and distributed his way-before-Christmas tax gift to the nation. But a gift is a gift.
It bears remembering Hellen Keller’s famous words that “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
From Mr Golding’s perspective, who does not see how common people will benefit in the short-run, he cannot envision the larger macro-defining and broader telling strategic picture of a tax package, yes, truth be told, a primarily business-centred focus in this instance, however, one that will ultimately boost investment, encourage employment, and turn around favouring the little man.
Above all, though, the nation will continue on a projected path of economic growth that few can remember seeing, no, or may ever see again, but a step well in line with Jamaica’s vision 2030, the ‘road map’ for making the country the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business.
This tax axe and Mr Golding’s response have brought into sharp focus the distinction between the philosophical ideologies of nation building by the two powers-that-be. Let the reader use discernment.
GREEN AND ORANGE BLOOD
I am more and more convinced that the blood of fellow Jamaicans is not red, but green and orange. This fact has made it disturbingly difficult for people with orange blood to give credit to those with the green substance in their veins and vice versa.
In this tax scenario, being opposition just for the sake of opposition does not cut it. The slash in tax is what does.
Mark you, Mr Golding, you have a refining role for policies proposed by the Government, but how you go about a gift with your blaming and shaming rhetoric is more than unfortunate, and in that you have missed a golden opportunity to allow your economic and counter-position to be properly meditated upon by the nation because of refusing to call a good spade a good spade or to give the Devil his due.
My blind, though visionary grandmother, would insist, ‘Son, if you have nothing to say, say nothing’.
WARRICK LATTIBEAUDIERE
Lecturer,
University of Technology