P.S.U.: Public Sector Spending Drives Economy
Dean Flowers
But with the state of the economy, what are the options available? Dean Flowers says that public sector spending has been driving the economy for over the past decade under the Barrow administration. He explains how the decision on public officers’ salaries and increments, as well as other cuts to government purchasing, will have ripple effects throughout the entire country.
Dean Flowers, 1st Vice President, P.S.U.
“If you tamper with public sector spending, you will cause more harm to the economy and you will cause more harm to the lives and livelihoods of not only public officers, but all Belizeans. If it is that public sector spending is driving the economy, isn’t it logical and common sense for us to know that all small businesses and especially every single individual in the informal sector – whether it be the mechanics, the food vendors, the market vendors, the bread seller, the bun seller, the pastry makers – those businesses are being sustained primarily by public sector spending. And so when you see the government cutting fifteen to twenty percent off goods and services and on top of that, cut ten percent from the individuals who are responsible for about forty to fifty percent of public spending right now then it is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. You will do harm not only to public officers who are already bearing the burden of the taxes being generated in this economy, but you will also be hurting the private and the small businesses in the informal sector.”
