Several tax increases and all kinds of cuts await us, but it is unclear whether and what goals the government wants to achieve with the state budget, which has been cobbled together through trouble, said Riigikogu Center Party faction chairman Tanel Kiik about the 2024 state budget handed over to the parliament for processing.
“The state budget must address the most important concerns of the Estonian state – reducing inequality, strengthening the health care system, solving the population and economic crisis, and securing security. However, the current government lacks both a short and a long plan,” it was stated Tanel Kiik. “During several simultaneous crises, it is the duty of the state to support its people and companies. This, if necessary, at the cost of a deficit budget, until there is a readiness to review the Estonian tax system as a whole. The state budget for 2024 is an unambitious document, which shows that the government lacks both vision and priorities. Therefore, the state budget must be thoroughly revised in the parliament.”
In the current security situation, it is particularly short-sighted to freeze the salary fund in the field of internal security, which means a decrease compared to the average salary and accelerates the resignation of policemen and rescuers. “The salary increase for teachers will be much slower than the increase in the average salary, which means that the promise to bring the salary of teachers to 120% of the average salary will also be broken. This is in a situation where the workload of teachers is already too high and we have to motivate young educators to choose a responsible profession,” said Tanel Kiik.
Also, according to Tanel Kiige, the government has reneged on the promise to raise the average old-age pension to at least 1,000 or even 1,200 euros. “The state budget does not have any positive message for the elderly, but it vividly reflects the attitude of today’s coalition, that the promises made in the elections can be easily backed away from. Since there are no plans to make an extraordinary pension increase in the following years, the elderly are left at the mercy of the inflationary storm and VAT increase,” said Tanel Kiik.
A member of the board of the Central Party pointed out that the government coalition also ignores the underfunding of the health sector, which makes access to medical care even more unequal. “Both governments led by Jüri Ratas strengthened the solidarity healthcare system. We started paying the state health insurance tax for non-working old-age pensioners and allocated 540 million euros for the years 2021-2024 to improve the availability of medical services. We also worked on increasing the number of doctors, nurses and other specialists and renewing the healthcare infrastructure. Unfortunately, it seems that the current government has simply forgotten the health field,” said Tanel Kiik.
In addition to tax increases, another burden will be placed on people in the form of the loss of free public transport, which, according to Tanel Kiige, will primarily affect the livelihoods of people living in the countryside and low-wage earners. “2025. In 2018, a car tax and a secret super tax will be added to this in an even tougher form than planned, which should bring another 400 million to the budget. In the conditions of a six-quarter-long economic recession, people and companies should be supported, not burdened with tax increases that worsen social inequality,” affirmed Tanel Kiik.
