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OBA won’t reveal its plans

The One Bermuda Alliance still hasn’t told us how they are going to address Bermuda’s most vexing challenges. In a recent op-ed in The Royal Gazette, we hoped that they would begin providing those solutions. They didn’t.That article didn’t talk about cutting spending or increasing tax revenues. No. Instead, it rehashed the same tired, old attacks while offering up a massive and costly tax cut and spending increases. For a party to say out of one side of their mouth that they are concerned about the debt and to offer up unwise and unworkable costly tax cuts and spending increases out of the other side is preposterous!When it comes to Bermuda’s greatest challenges, they’re now saying spend more! But, that’s not what they said a few years ago. In December, 2010, Bob Richards told The Royal Gazette inreference to Government spending: “It really has to be all about austerity, and that’s not something Government is going to want to talk about because it’s never popular, but it’s about saving so when times improve we have some purse power.”In Europe, austerity has meant massive tax hikes, lost jobs, along with deep cuts to education, healthcare benefits, and much more. What will the OBA's austerity bring to Bermuda? Will it mean deep and damaging cuts to benefits and jobs to things like DayCare, FutureCare, education, scholarships, jobs and many more investments that you and your family rely on?Bob Richards and the OBA say it has to be all about austerity. But, they don't tell us what they are going to cut! The party of no ideas and no solutions strikes again. The OBA isn't telling us their plans because they don’t want you to know what they really have in store for the country.The PLP has stood strong for Bermudians in these tough economic times. We delivered FutureCare which provides our seniors with high quality healthcare after a lifetime of hard work. We delivered DayCare which provides young struggling families with the support they need. We reformed education and worked with police to bring crime to a five-year low. We delivered the EEZ which provides tax deferments, grants and more to Bermudian-owned businesses. We’ve increased the social safety net and protected jobs during these challenging times for our economy. This reflects our governing values. We invest in Bermudians during challenging times while maintaining a substantially lower debt to GDP ratio than the United States, the United Kingdom and almost every other country on Earth!The next election offers a stark choice between a PLP that will stand strong for all Bermudians and an OBA who is afraid to tell us where they really stand.The question is, where do you stand?Scott Simmons is the Progressive Labour Party’s House of Assembly candidate for Southampton West Central