Finance Minister Eugene Cox's final first term budget was "as expected", said Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons.

"This was very much an election year budget with no further tax increases. Like flowers on Valentines Day, it was expected."

But he accused Government of mortgaging the youth with a Budget that amounted to buying votes.

He noted that Government was spending $100 million more than it did in 1998/99.

"That works out to be essentially an increase of $2,500 per voter per year. There is also in this budget a very large increase in current account spending of approximately $40 million which raises the very real question of what is the taxpayer getting for this spending."

He questioned whether Government had spent money effectively in the past "particularly when you consider the amount of waste we've seen over the last four years."

Dr. Gibbons added: "The fact that our social fabric is rapidly deteriorating and many would say that the service being provided in housing, healthcare, public safety and education are worse now than they were four or five years ago."

He said Government was trying to solve problems by throwing money and people at them and lacked the "imagination" necessary to deliver programs targeted at "fundamental needs of the community".

"They are basically giving us the same old approach but spending more on it," he said.

"It's clear that the government's approach is not working and now they are asking us for more money and more time to fix the problems."

And he criticised the record borrowing being planned, saying it amounted to mortgaging Bermuda's young despite Government's avowed commitment to make sure they do not feel "priced out of" living on the Island.

"What he's really doing now is buying votes now and proposing to pay for them later."

Mr. Cox had defended his plans to borrow up to $78 million saying that now was a good time to borrow for capital expenditure because interest rates are low.

But Dr. Gibbons said that most of Government's loan facilities are floating rate facilities "which means as interest rates begin to rise - which they inevitably will as night follows day at some point in the future - low interest rates will turn into a very heavy burden as interest rates rise."

But he agreed with the decision to phase the construction of the new Hamilton Police station and court complex "rather than adding that to an already huge capital budget of $103 million".

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"There's a lot of money being splashed around here but there's really no overall co-ordinated plan to address the fundamental reforms needed on most of our key issues like housing healthcare, public safety and education."

Dr. Gibbons will give a detailed response to the Budget at the House of Assembly next week.