Okay, I must admit this was the first budget that I was quite concerned about. Who could blame me? When I hear about our debt numbering into the billions, it makes me reach real quick for a good dose of my Pepto Bismol to help calm the panic and nausea.Now, I’ve been told by my Editor that my column cannot be political and that’s fine. I have always been one of those armchair critics anyway. I won’t go and demonstrate outside of the House of Assembly, but I will moan and bitch over a beer with anyone that will listen and that privilege usually falls on my beloved ‘battle-axe’ (aka de wife).Boy, have things done a complete turnaround. We were only one of three countries in the world that came from balancing its budget year after year, to a country being in debt to the tune of over $2 billion! How the hell did that happen?!So you can see why the old stomach acid was rising in my gut, working overtime.Also, a new government has little to lose when it comes to a Budget Statement. They could easily have proclaimed: “Look, we are sorry, but dem other byze left us in a real bad state through all their overspending and their fancy cars, etc so now we have no other choice but to introduce income tax.” Yes, I was worried.So needless to say, I was a little relieved how relatively well we all came out of this one. It could have been a lot worse. Sure I’m going to have to pay for my car licensing now, but a least I don’t have to listen to my deadbeat son-in-law asking if I can put his car under my name so he doesn’t have to pay the licensing.Plus I will have to pay a little more for my bottle of ‘Black’ and my pack of Camels, but that’s okay, I can do my part to try and help. I just hope that others are willing to do the same because I would hate to see our Island go the same route as some of those European countries where they are running at 25 percent unemployment.It’s high time we put aside our differences and pull together and get this great Island of ours back up and running again and in good shape.I asked a friend of mine who lives in one of those European countries that was booming five years ago, “When do you think your country will get back to normal?”In all his great wisdom, he replied: ‘What we had before was not normal, we will never be like that again.”Well maybe the same could be said for Bermuda.Maybe what we had was not normal and maybe we won’t get back what we had ten years ago, but that’s no excuse for us not to try.