Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2012 as an opinion piece on the first months of Mariano Rajoy’s PP government, in office since December 2011. The tax rises, the February 2012 labor reform, the health and education cuts and the question about reaching 6 million unemployed reflect that period.
The PP (People’s Party) set up a protest platform against the previous government’s VAT increase. Will it set it up again to protest against its own measures?
It’s not our blog’s policy to cover political topics, although in the past we did criticize the anti-smoking law and the previous government’s revenue-raising measures disguised as lower speed limits. That’s why it would be unfair not to review the way the current government is taking us for fools.
I heard Mariano Rajoy say that they don’t improvise, that everything is part of their defined strategy to get Spain out of the crisis. It’s not as if Mariano Rajoy won the elections on the strength of his manifesto, which was non-existent, but he did go as far as naming certain specific things he would never do.
Rajoy believed that raising taxes in times of crisis was bad policy, because consumption wouldn’t grow. Rajoy raised taxes.
Rajoy believed that raising VAT was even crazier than raising taxes. Today he announces that he will raise VAT.
Rajoy was going to support entrepreneurs. Rajoy has cut aid to entrepreneurs by 50%.
Rajoy said that making dismissals cheaper was not a solution, because the focus had to be on creating jobs, not destroying them. Rajoy has not only made dismissals cheaper but has brought in something close to “dismissal at will”, and on top of that we are in the middle of a wave of job destruction.
Rajoy wasn’t going to touch health and education. Rajoy has cut health and education.
So, since I learned that 1+1 makes 2, by the same logic, if Rajoy isn’t improvising, the only explanation is that Rajoy lied brazenly to get himself onto the “throne”. It’s no surprise when a politician lies, but he is probably the first in history who hasn’t kept a single one, not one, of his promises about what he would never do.
And I’m sorry to say that, at this stage, the old story about the mess inherited from Zapatero (his predecessor) no longer works. It’s time to start asking whether this is really the policy a country in recession needs, because as far as I know, you grow by creating, not by destroying. Cuts without a plan for creating anything will lead us to a bailout.
Friday’s questions: when we reach 6 million unemployed, where will the next snip or cut fall? What were the other lies? What will the next improvisation be?…
Featured image: Marta Jara ( eldiario.es ), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
