I was speaking last week with a Bermudian businessman who runs an IT company and his news was not good:

"I've just done the numbers and I'm going to have to lay one of my staff off," he said. "I don't want to but I have to."

The businessman was speaking about the impact of the increased payroll tax on his company's bottom line. With primary responsibilities for meeting significant payroll demands and maintaining his company's share value, the net impact of the budget for this businessman was one less worker on the payroll.

It takes time for a national budget to impact business operations and family budgets, so the anecdote I've mentioned may be the first rain drop in the coming storm.

Certainly the business community has already issued storm warnings about the Government's budget, which imposed $100 million in new taxes on the community.

Organizations representing the insurance industry, international companies, local companies, even unionized workers have expressed their belief that significant new taxes, at this time, in the midst of a recession will:

· Limit "future employee growth… and diminish employment opportunity for Bermudians" – Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers

· "Result in job losses… and increased outsourcing" – Chamber of Commerce

· "Force business closures" – Bermuda Public Services Union, and

· "Undermine conditions for "job creation or retention" – Association of Bermuda International Companies

There are some in the community – including all PLP MPs except Dale Butler and Wayne Perinchief – who say the budget is a good budget and dismiss these concerns as self-interested knee-jerk reactions. Even if that characterization were accurate, consider who these criticizing groups represent: major employers both local and international and a trade union. I urge people to take their concerns seriously. They are real.

You may ask why the government is forcing people and businesses to pay $100 million more this year to support its operations.

The answer is twofold.

On the one hand, the government has simply spent itself into a corner. Incessant spending sprees on everything from perks to consultants; massive overspends on virtually all building projects and unprecedented borrowing has left little to help people in hard times. Just ask Parks workers fighting for overtime pay. Just ask people who face a 36% increase in HIP premiums or seniors who have to pay twice as much for FutureCare.

On the other hand, with the possible exception of the PLP's first finance minister Eugene Cox, virtually all government ministers have shown no spending discipline, no respect for the public purse and no understanding that the economy needs to be tended and nurtured to grow and prosper.

Government ministers came of age thinking Bermuda's economic miracle was pre-ordained, even bullet proof, and that it would continue forever. There was a sense that it didn't matter how much money they wasted, the miracle of rapid economic growth would always bail them out.

The cumulative effect of the government's years in office has been a massive increase in the size of government (30% since 2000), the near destruction of our tourism and retail sectors, an unprecedented debt burden ($1 billion and counting), alienation in the international business community, a depleted capacity to help people in hard times and a persisting sense that deal-making favours friends over fairness.

And now the government with this budget is coming after the public to pay for its bad habits and poor results.

What is particularly galling about its tax and spend budget is that it wants people to knuckle under and pay the bill while doing nothing real to curb its own spending, which is scheduled to grow at least 9% this year.

This says to me the Government will not change; and if it cannot demonstrate leadership in current circumstances, then when?

With no change in behavior, we face the prospect of the government continuing to weaken the island's economic foundations. It is a road we cannot continue down if we are to succeed in this ever-challenging world.

Bermudians must ask themselves if this is acceptable, if they support more of the same. The question is real because "what's past is prologue." The situation we are in is the result of bad habits more than 10 years in the making.

It doesn't have to be this way.

In my Budget Reply, I spoke of the need to tie government policies and actions to family-based values that work for all of us – in the broadest sense it's about honesty, integrity and fairness; in budgetary terms it's about living within our means, judicious use of debt and accountability.

Bermuda deserves better leadership than it's been getting. Government needs to demonstrate leadership by example. We did not get that with this budget. Instead we got a budget that says: "Do as I say, not as I do".

My colleagues and I don't accept it. We can do better and that's the point I'd like to leave with readers.