2019 budget ‘makes poor people poorer’, Mitsotakis says: ND will vote down goverment of taxes
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
The main opposition New Democracy (ND) will vote down “the government of taxes, unacceptable national compromises, scandals and vested interests,” party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Tuesday during a plenary discussion on the 2019 draft budget.
In his strong condemnation of the coalition government of SYRIZA-ANEL for “populism and politics without principles,” Mitsotakis reiterated that the fiscal obligations the government has assumed with its lenders “comprise an informal fourth loan agreement, with unbearable surpluses of 3.5 pct to 2022.” The new year, he charged, is coming for a society which remains trapped in austerity after 29 new taxes and a reduction in real salaries of 3.5 percent in 2017, while surpluses “undermine the economy and the average income.”
Mitsotakis also said that the government of Alexis Tsipras raised the primary surplus from a target of 1.75 percent of the GDP to 4.13 percent, forcing Greeks to pay an additional 4.2 billion euros over what they needed to.” The current outstanding debts that Greeks have surpass 103 billion euros, he said, “and half the Greek population owes money, unable to pay or even to make arrangements to meet its obligations,” while household deposits and those of businesses in banks “barely total 107.7 billion euros, compared to 136 billion in November 2014,” before the coalition came to power.
This draft budget, he insisted, “supports unbearable surpluses, harming public investments to begin with, which are short by 1.55 billion euros and will be further cut back by 550 million in 2019.”
Accusing the prime minister of “excessive taxation, dissolution of the social fabric and cowardice in reforms,” the main opposition leader said that the budget “remains an enemy of the people” and “makes poor people poorer.”
Mitsotakis then referred to his party’s programme, which includes lowering taxes and more opportunities for Greeks to repay their debts, boosting SMEs and the health of the insurance system by investing its capital.
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Source: ANA-MPA