Dear Editor,

From all the evidence in the public domain, political parties have as their main object the gaining and maintaining of power, and not the serving in the best interest of people. In this context, parliamentarians deliberately ignore the basic principles that expenditure must not exceed income and that taxation must always relate to taxable capacity and never be a disincentive to production, and arbitrary taxation of goods for production can never be justified.

The first duty of Government is to provide security and the best possible justice system, and so that is where the majority of public expenditure should go. The next duty is to provide an environment conducive to economic growth and employment, so that people will depend less on Government and more on themselves.

In this context, the National Housing Trust is just another way to collect revenue to support mismanagement of public finance, because the majority of contributors can never and will never benefit. If there was ever a fraud on the majority, the National Housing Trust would be the biggest fraud on the people.

I am not prepared to say where education should come in the budget except to say that our institutions of higher learning should be financed to carry out scientific research to improve production and growth. And by the way, what is happening at our Scientific Research Council? The United States says 60 per cent of its economic growth is due to scientific research by the leading universities and China is about to follow the US.

Owen S Crosbie

Manchester

oss@cwjamaica.com