After the Saturday-Sunday program conference of Law and Justice and the announcement by President Jarosław Kaczyński of the proposal to increase the amount per child from PLN 500 to PLN 800, the opposition was in turmoil.
“There is no ‘money’ and there won’t be
Some opposition representatives argue that these are just election promises, others that there is no money in the budget for this, others that PiS cannot spend money that belongs to all taxpayers in such a way, there were also those who wanted to limit this program by addressing it to families where both parents work.
Many leading PO politicians, knowingly or unknowingly, referred to the statement of then Finance Minister Jan Vincent Rostowski “there is no money and there will be none” and threatened again, as in the election campaigns in 2015 and 2019, with budgetary disaster.
The budget comparison is crushing for the opposition
And we know very well that there was no catastrophe, in fact, the comparison of our predecessors’ last budget of 2015 with the 2023 budget is downright crushing for the opposition.
Budget revenues were PLN 289 billion in 2015, in 2023 they will be PLN 604 billion (and are likely to be in surplus), more than twice as high, and in a situation where we have seen numerous external shocks over the last 4 years , such as: the Covid19 pandemic, a sharp rise in energy prices and now Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
In turn, VAT revenue in 2015 was PLN 123 billion, and in 2023 it will be PLN 286 billion, i.e. there will be an increase of more than 2.5 times, and the amount of VAT revenue alone is comparable to the amount of all budget revenue in 2015 (then it was PLN 289 billion).
In addition, the opposition’s suggestions that our country’s debt is growing are not true, in 2015 it amounted to 51.3% of GDP (after taking over PLN 153 billion from open pension funds, which then accounted for as much as 9% of the GDP), and at the end of this year it will amount to about 47% of GDP (according to the EU methodology, ie taking into account extra-budgetary resources in PFR and BGK).
The credibility of the rule of law and justice
The opposition is also in trouble because the government of Law and Justice (PiS) has acquired an extremely important asset in almost 8 years of rule, namely credibility.
The program statements of the 2015 and 2019 election campaigns were fully implemented, which was a breakthrough compared to the previous PO-PSL or SLD-PSL governments.
At the last program conference, President Kaczyński called it “the restoration of our democracy” and recalled in this context that elections can be an act of democracy or manipulation.
It is an act of manipulation when various things are promised in the election campaign that are not intended to be carried out and thus the voters are misled, even knowingly.
He recalled that “PiS announced a lot in both election campaigns, we had a program, a great program. And I can honestly say that we executed this program and in this way gave democracy the right meaning.”
800 plus or eight stars?
In this situation, in the upcoming elections, Poles will be faced with the choice of choosing the 800 plus program or the Platform program, which can be briefly described as “eight stars”.
The leader of the Platform, Donald Tusk, chose to arouse angry emotions and became a hostage of the most extreme circles, such as: “Together Strong” Citizens of the Republic of Poland, Women’s Strike or Flying Brigades of the Opposition, whose only message is the aforementioned “eight stars”.
They have long set the tone of the campaign and Tusk, meeting his supporters, often has to speak against the backdrop of people wearing T-shirts with “eight stars” prints, completely discrediting the duality prime minister and head of the European Council.
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Source: wPolityce