A call for progressive taxation including the elimination of payroll tax for those earning less than $36,000 was at the core of the Opposition’s official budget reply yesterday.

United Bermuda Party finance spokeswoman Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said full payroll tax shouldn’t be levied until people were earning more than $50,000. While issuing a stinging condemnation of a do-nothing PLP government which had frittered away cash while education declined and the housing crisis deepened, Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin called for a hike in social spending.

She said: “Somewhere along the way this Government got lost. Somewhere along the way to the champagne or the plane, they forgot the point of good government.”

She said the elimination of payroll tax for low income earnings would cost $12 million and could be funded by cutting waste. Other pledges included free pre-schooling for Bermudian families in need plus breakfast for every Government school child from pre-school to middle school.

Free bus and ferry fares for all Government school children were also promised along with free health care for needy seniors including free prescription drugs, eye glasses and dental care.

Asked how her party planned to pay for all the pledges if elected, Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin detailed nearly $30 million of potential cuts including a 25 percent reduction in Government travel, a ten percent cut in consultant costs, a 15 percent cut in the communications budget and a 25 percent cut in minister’s salaries.

She said a $13.2 million saving could be gained from freezing non-pay spending at last year’s levels and leaving unfilled posts vacant apart from for the Police and the hospital.

And axing unnecessary media spending — including the Premier’s press secretary and the planned Government TV station — could also help scrape together cash for helping those shut out of Bermuda’s booming economy, said Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin.

On Education she wondered how the PLP, which got elected promising educational reform, was after nine years and six Education Ministers, having to launch a full-scale review after fewer than 50 percent of public school kids graduated.

Too many educational initiatives had been launched and aborted, said Mrs. Pamplin-Gordon.

“Like six-year-olds all gravitating towards the ball on the soccer pitch, Ministers are running amok trying on the latest airy-fairy idea, creating motion and noise but no progress.”

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin admitted her party had erred by closing the Technical Institute and would seek to revive it.

Turning to housing she said it boggled the mind that Government had a $1 billion budget yet had no new spending for tackling the accommodation crisis but instead hoped the private sector would step in.

This had been tried at Southside, said Mrs. Pamplin-Gordon, where a developer had bought public land cheaply and now stood to make a $12-million profit.

“Last year the PLP Government, amid great fanfare, put $20 million in the budget to build homes. They were so bereft of a plan that they did not spend one penny of that money.

“In this 2007/08 budget they even revised last year’s provision to $10 million. This year they have put zero, nada, nothing, zilch.”

Instead the UBP would build 100 affordable homes for rent and through tax incentives, duty free materials, use of Government land and financial assistance build homes for sale at less than $300,000.

She said since 2000, Government spending had risen by 78 percent while inflation had risen by 25 percent in that time.

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin lashed out at the 100 percent rise in tax on foreign currency purchases which will put up prices for hard-pressed retailers on imports.

“Is this move helping to sound the death knell for retailing?”

And she said the tax would hurt parents sending money to their children overseas.

The Shadow Finance Minister wondered how a $1 billion budget could make no mention of the Causeway replacement or repairing nursing home Lefroy House.

Ultimately, said Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin, the PLP’s years in power and been a waste of both time and money.

She said: “They have presided over 3,000 days of an administration that has borne witness to a crisis in housing where costs are out of reach, jobs that are unattainable, education that is crumbling, unprecedented drainage of public funds, a culture of dishonesty and actions by some that would cause right-thinking people to question.

“Above all, they seem to have forgotten the reason they were put into power — to represent and work for the people of Bermuda.”