But, despite the across the board increases for public officers and teachers - the Leader of the Opposition was not impressed. John Briceno said that the budget was even worse than he expected:..
Mike Rudon, CH5
"Is it as bad as you've expected?"
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"I think it's probably worse. I think that it's quite telling that the Prime Minister went from the "best is yet to come" to "Stability in the time of change." Obviously he has forgotten all the political rhetoric coming to the elections. First of all when we look at the overall numbers that we have, a record deficit. A deficit of over 5% of GDP and even the Prime Minister had to accept that norm - what is the accepted internationally and he is using the excuse of wanting to that he has to do to the interest of the people. We know that that's not really the case. The case is that they went into a spending spree so that they can win, or as some would say "buy the elections." So they bought the elections and now we have to pay for it."
"The Prime Minister, because of the crunch that he finds himself in, he has decided that he has increase the taxes on fuel - diesel. And so now we are starting to get that hit. When you look at the overall budget, there is no excitement in that budget. The Prime Minister is usually robust and energetic and use all kinds of flowery words that my friend Jules would always understand - but in this case we had none of that. He knows that he has a bad budget."
When the budget is debated - Briceno will lead off as the leader of the opposition where he will give the formal response to the budget. After that the debate will go on for two days.
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