In the Saturday 10 May weekend edition of Hoy newspaper, eminent author Fabio R. Herrera-Minino describes how the Dominican Republic is a nation captive by politicians. “From 1996 taxation has been increasing progressively on a par with the personal wealth of government officials, while government services, despite all the money made available, have not improved. On the contrary, he writes. There has been a decline in the quality of services in public hospitals, social security, security, aqueducts and electricity.
He says the robust increase in taxation to unimaginable levels has resulted in the emergence of a new caste of prosperous government officials, whose fortunes compete with leading business owners and old money.
He says that the torture of the submissive Dominican people, who have accepted with resignation the impoverishment that has increased with every fiscal reform that is imposed with governors arguing the money will be used for social programs to rescue the poor, but instead the funds have gone to strengthen the paternalist state model adopted by Latin American regimes of recent years, to ensure stability without affecting their staying in power.
The author mentions the taxes are choking the victims, mainly the middle class, which is condemned to paying more taxes. Middle class spending has begun to decline, as business owners complain. This explains the recent government injection of RD$9 billion in capital works to impact positively on the economy.
“The bureaucracy, with so much power, bullies the population with officials who are accompanied by bodyguards, unlike the President himself, using luxury SUVs purchased with the state resources, and supported by legions of media workers to carry out propaganda to give the impression of efficiency and hard work, in order to hide the granting of public works to their cronies.
“We are prisoners of an unscrupulous class whose objective is to get the maximum benefit from the post they have been assigned by the President of the moment, in appreciation for their political activism and loyalty to their political project so that they can quickly make up for the difficult past times.
www.hoy.com.do/opiniones/2013/5/10/479880/La-nacion-prisionera-de-los-politicos