VAT was implemented to bring down the national debt, the national debt has only increased since then (even before Dorian and COVID). Adding new taxes will do nothing but fuel the insatiable appetite of these governments for wasteful spending. New taxes will be brought in and 5 years later we will start seeing trial balloons in the local media about introducing new taxes to "reduce the national debt".

That would actually go a long way towards fixing our problem and mean that they wouldn't be able to give their sweethearts overpriced no bid contracts, so they aren't really interested in hearing all of that.

Why doesn't the government offer a temporary VAT holiday, or reduce tax on gasoline, if the VAT revenue is as high as they are projecting? Having such an import based economy limits what the government can do to a large degree, but they definitely can do more to assist if they wanted to.

Also, backyard farming. The Bahamas will never grow enough food to be self sufficient, but encouraging the growth of simple backyard crops would be a help in making the country a little bit less dependent on imported food. Not a game changer, but it would be a help.

The real question is why does anyone expect any better?

Wow! Someone who actually makes Moultrie look competent!

This government is an utter disgrace.

> literally in the case of Senator Ted Cruz, who walked away from a British interviewer asking why is it that these mass shootings only happen in America.

Except that it doesn't only happen in America. As I have pointed out before, there have been multiple in Canada. Cartels massacre entire villages in Mexico, and most of Latin America is just as lawless and prone to violence. How many beheadings has France had? How many grenade attacks in Sweden. There was literally a massive shootout between "refugees" in Germany a couple weeks ago. For all the things worth criticizing about America, violence is not something unique to them.

Nobody has forgotten the "summer of love" two years back where people had their homes and businesses burnt to the ground while the police did nothing to protect them. You can rest assured that nobody, and I mean nobody, in America will ever give up their firearms. They are all aware of the real goal : disarm lawful gun owners and force them to live with Chicago crime rates while having no protection.

I find it really interesting that nobody is talking about the troubled background this guy had. No parents, no stable home, bullied in school, and so on. Funny how America has had the 2nd Amendment for hundreds of years but mass shootings are a modern invention. Almost like broken families produce broken people. Yes, personal responsibility is present, but broken societies produce broken results. Nobody wants a real solution to that problem though.

The PLP deserve to lose the next election solely for giving this jackass a job in the government. The only problem is that the FNM will surely find some other buffoon to one up them with.

60k a year to do nothing but talk foolishness, government is always complaining about it needs more taxes though. Nothing but parasites.

This should have been done decades ago, but better late than never.

The irony of what you just pointed out is completely lost on the writer of this article. Virtue signalling is more important than drawing accurate conclusions using critical thinking in the mind of soft left neo-liberals.

The writer of this article would do well to remember that Canada's stringent gun controls did absolutely nothing to stop the mass shooting that happened in Nova Scotia about two years back. The shooter even used the big, black, and scary AR-15 that is banned by direct reference in Canada. Almost like criminals don't buy their guns from Walmart.

Americans have the **right** to bear arms. Notice that it is not **privilege**, but a **right**. Americans shed their blood fighting to have an independent nation, while Canada was a British dominion until the Empire was dead and could do nothing to prevent independence. I have frequented both countries, and have concluded that this is the reason why the mentalities of the people are completely different.

Also, please let me know how great immigration is for the millenials and zoomers in Canada. One look at the average home price in Vancouver or the GTA (or even Halifax now) is more than enough to show the wonderful effects of unsustainable immigration on an economy. Most young Canadians are completely locked out of the housing market while the Grits and Tories refuse to do anything about the issue because "racism" and "muh GDP".