I wonder how many people would be interested in running for office if we went back to the old days where politicians did not get paid.

The problem with selling SOEs off is that someone has to be willing to purchase them in the first place. Little do Bahamians know, companies like customers who pay their bills. No one is going to run operations at a loss here.

"the increased spending might help make up the difference as well."

Maybe if you read more carefully, you would notice that I did not suggest it would make up the entire amount. I merely suggested that it may help to stimulate further spending and compensate for a part of the revenue lost.

Truth be told, there is no way for us to tax our way out of our problems. What? You expect Bahamians who make less than 20k a year to pay 20% of their income to the government? There is only one solution, cut the costs. Stop paying a gorillian civil servants and trim down on the amount of wastage that these Ministries generate. Collect on overdue revenue. They don't pay, seize their properties and auction them off as is standard in the rest of the world. No more tax breaks for Lyford Cay. You can afford to pay more RPT if you own a home over 1 mil in value.

Agreed 100%, but intelligence has nothing to do with how financially well of you are. You can be the brightest person in the room, with the greatest ideas imaginable, but your ideas will die on the drawing board if you can't access the capital you need to get them off the ground.

As a poster above stated, this was just a way for all the political, law, or medical cronies to give a kickback to their children while leaving the housing crisis in Nassau unaddressed for the average Bahamian. The insane cost to rent in Nassau is an issue that no politician seems to be interested in addressing, probably because most of them do not have to worry about it.

For starters, they need to crack down on RPT delinquents. What happens when you don't pay your property taxes in the US or Canada? Your property goes up for sale. No reason why we should just leave millions in revenue just sitting on the table not being used. Lyford Cay can afford to pay more as well (or even just getting some of the residents there to pay would be a start). Business already pay a corporate tax in the form of business license fees, it is just set up that way to separate between domestic companies and IBCs.

With VAT being a consumption tax, basic theory is that consumer spending will go up if prices are dropped. It is why I said raising it to 12% was a horrible idea in the first place; growth was killed off by such a sharp increase as people started showing greater frugality with their earnings. If prices drop from a VAT decrease (a lot more factors to consider besides VAT, especially with imports), the increased spending might help make up the difference as well.

True enough Tal. Let me word it like this then, Minnis certainly was (and still is) deeply unpopular with the colonies populaces. Judging by the fact that we haven't had an incumbent government re-elected since 1997, it was a political death sentence to go in with such a low popular appeal. The blowout wouldn't have been so bad if the FNM had called a convention and put someone else there to lead them in, but it probably would have been a PLP victory regardless. National trend continues to hold firm.

Bidet thinks that crack cocaine comes from the Bahamas; I think that it is safe to say that we are not on his radar, even when it isn't fried from having early stage dementia.

FNM should just start planning for 2031 if they put up Kwasi as leader lol. These people must not go outside; everyone and their dog knew that Brave was going to blow Minnis out of the water, yet they somehow legitimately thought that they were going to win, and are now doubling down on their stupid mistakes.

Pintard and Cartwright is the best combination for leader/deputy. Pintard won a swing seat with the biggest margin for the FNM, even bigger than St. Anne's, and Cartwright managed to hold onto an inner city seat out of all places. Quite obviously, they are loved by their constituents and were in touch with what they were feeling. East Grand Bahama will vote FNM if they run a potcake, that seat should not be used to gauge public levels of support for a leader.

2007 : PLP
2010 by-election : plp
2012 : plp
2017 : fnm
2021 : plp

Fair to say that area has a faint gold leaning to it. The FNM victory in 2017 is the exception.

" OAS rep said he didnt see any red flags. I guess he saw yellow flags instead?"

Judging by the results, that would be a yes lol.

They had a nice spreadsheet breaking the totals down by PD for 2017, it was such a neat format. Would be nice to have that again. There are a couple of things worth analyzing on a community level about this election.