/ world today news/ “The governors adopted the state budget for 2016 on first reading. The government’s project for the most important law in the state is without ideas. It is not a key to nationally responsible policies, it does not contain a vision and an idea for the development of the state, it does not provide an answer to the problems that concern people”.
This was stated by the chairman of the BSP, Mihail Mikov, in a report during today’s meeting of the National Council of the BSP. According to the leader of the socialists, it is no coincidence that even before its adoption, the budget was condemned by trade unions, employers, police, and cultural figures, but above all, by the people.
Social polarization persists
The chairman of the BSP recalled one of the main criticisms of the left regarding the budget – the weak distributive role of the state, which covers 37% of the funds compared to 50% on average for the EU. Mikov was categorical that the draft budget of the right-wing administration takes us back to the years of Dyankov and is anti-social. The amount of social payments remains frozen and the tax mechanisms for social polarization are preserved – flat income tax, high level of indirect taxes – after the proposal of BSP LEFT BULGARIA to introduce a fairer progressive tax scale was not accepted. At the same time, the maximum amount of the insurance threshold is not increased in order to keep the cost of labor low in the interest of capital.
“The increase in the amount of pensions lags behind the growth of the funds needed for subsistence and the raising of the poverty line, which will leave tens of thousands of people outside the circle of social assistance recipients,” the leader of the Socialists pointed out. According to him, no measures to combat the demographic crisis are planned, and the proposal of the left for a lower VAT rate for children’s food and goods was rejected. The government failed to fulfill its obligations to introduce short- and medium-term measures, a comprehensive strategy to combat the demographic.
“In education, funds are decreasing – by 0.1% compared to GDP this year and next year. And the scarce resource is diverted to commercial companies that generate profit. The 2016 budget deepens regional disparities,” Mihail Mikov also emphasized.
Bulgaria enters a debt spiral
The ratio between debt and GDP, in view of the resistance forces of the Bulgarian economy, is alarmingly high, warned the chairman of the BSP. According to him, with the budget for next year, the country enters a debt spiral, and financial stability will be ensured on the backs of the people.
“It is interesting the behavior of ABV, which first did not support, and then supported billion loans at the beginning of the year, promised to monitor what the money will be used for. Today, when they support the budget, which does not provide an answer to this question – BGN 2 billion is available to the government, but it is not known for what – they owe an answer to their voters, but also to all Bulgarians, who spent more than 5 billion this year and who wants another 5.5 billion for the next one and for what,” said the leader of the BSP. In addition, Mikov pointed out that the revenue part was deliberately understated in order to account for the over-implementation of the budget, which was spent as appropriate and without a budget framework by the government and the parties close to it.
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