Who Is Really Paying the Bill?
Issued : Thursday 8 July, 2010
As Judge Neilan retired, his last remarks in relation to bankers may be seen as the last sting, but I think they resonated far deeper than that. The attempts in the last week to portray the Social Protection Minister's remarks on one parent family payments, unemployment benefits and hitting old age pensioner as slip ups by a maverick are certainly not close the truth. If we are to be brutally honest since our financial crisis caused by bankers, developers and irresponsible speculators began, how many measures brought in by the government actually helped the vulnerable and hard pressed workers. The perpetrators are bailed out and the victims are made pay. So rather than a stimulus job creation package that might take children out of pre fabs, build essential infrastructure and upgrade our local hospital rather then the opposite, we are in fact opting to reduce employment and enlarge the gap between rich and poor.
The government have opted for share holders over mortgage holders, bankers over pensioners and developers over our children and their future. So in an age of reduced wages we are not getting reduced prices. Just compare our prices to the rest of the EU. We are not just reducing wages, benefits and opportunities; we are making people travel further for essential medical care, forcing them to pay more for energy, essential items, heating, and transport. For example instead of installing public transport infrastructure all over the country allowing people to get rid of one or two cars, we are leaving them with no option but to take cars with high tax rates on spiralling motorways using high priced petrol. This is not to mention maintenance, parking, insurance and a carbon tax while we do untold damage to a fragile environment. We are still being robbed at a time when we are finding in it difficult to make ends meet.
Maybe it is time to shout stop! The workers and the vulnerable in our society are paying again, the way we have always paid for the mistakes of those who will not suffer the real cost of this recession. If you want a real read on the economic state of our country don't ask the usual stoke brokers, bankers and commentators; what about asking the one parent families, the unemployed, the small business owners, the low waged and the ordinary worker who once again is asked to pay the countless charges, levies and stealth taxes that keep it all together. Where is the fairness, where is the equality, where is the justice? Or do they care about any of the three?
Cllr 
