I do not trust the government to manage any more of my money and anyone else who does is a fool. They cannot handle what they are taking from me now. More money will not help the government do anything.

I care because if that money goes into the consolidated fund it will be squandered. Its starts at 2% then 3% then 4% how will it stop? It wont. We cant fix pot holes in roads and provided basic infrastructure but we gonna do NHI? Why do we also have caps on NIB and now proposed NHI? 2-5% of a person making 220 dollars a week means a hell of allot more than 2-5% of a person making 8,000 a week but they do not pay on their full amount. That is dead wrong even if it went to a lower rate above the threshold.

Costa Rica is not an island ;P. So your idea to compete with DR's 4 million stop over visitors is to put a exclusive cruise port on land that if developed correctly could bring in lots of heads in beds? Wow brilliant. I am not against development but, we need the right kind that will benefit people with real jobs and not destroy our home in the meantime. And no I would not mind the civil service being cut by 50% it is a bloated hog that is not efficient with people falling over each other and no one responsible for anything. Put that money into proper infrastructure on these islands which is the governments job not employing people and the investors and the money will flow in. None of these places can develop without infrastructure.

Leave Abaco and Exuma alone the rest of the Bahamas does not want to be like Nassau. The Bahamas low level of development is our greatest asset when it comes to tourism if managed properly and could create a vast amount of wealth for our people. Unspoiled natural beauty is something none of our other competition in Florida or further south have.

So Freeport dies, and we have to buy a worthless hotel and at the same time giving cruise ships with tourists on them private exclusive destinations. Cant make this up.

If things are so good can we hear from the Dominican foreign Minister? Can the Tribune contact the Dominican Foreign Minister for a comment?

Disney will build their port and Eleuthera will see very little economic impact from it. Just look to other cruise ship private islands and the cruise industry as a whole and Disney's record in Abaco. Baker's (left as a mess) and Castaway Cay with a handful of jobs while Sandy Point and Moore's island remain in economic need. If people can't learn from the past they are doomed to repeat it.

What caused the fire? Who is getting fired if it was negligence? How much damage will be done to the economy because of this? Why can't we put 65-100 million into renewable/ more efficient energy versus buying hotels to be a drain on the taxpayer? Can't the government do something temporarily about vat on electricity? Oh wait they collect more taxes the higher our bills are. Maybe this wasn't an accident.

Bye bye Airbnb, hello vacation rental by owner.

Please do not talk about soil. Some countries grow things in the desert. The grocery stores throw away all the produce that gets burnt at the dump that could be composted. Seaweed cleaned off the beaches to look pretty for the tourists could be composted. Anything paper from cardboard to paper towel and egg shells can be composted. The Bahamas does not have a soil problem or fertilizer problem. We just lack the initiative to make things happen.