The 2019 budget: opposition focuses on ‘wrong choices’

The first reactions to the King’s budget day speech setting out the cabinet’s policies for the coming period have been predictably mixed, with traditionally upbeat prime minister Mark Rutte calling the budget ‘no reason to be downcast’ while PVV leader Geert Wilders said it was ‘a terrible story’.

Wilders accused the prime minister of fobbing people off with a ‘paltry’ 1.5 % increase in purchasing power while the economy is booming. He also told broadcaster NOS the prime minister must up investment and that he would urge him to do so during the upcoming general debates.

GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver said ‘wrong choices’ have been made, such as scrapping the dividend tax and the lowering corporate tax. ‘That money should have gone into combating work pressure in the public sector, in health care, the police force and schools,’ he told the broadcaster.

D66 leader Alexander Pechtold, whose party is part of the current coalition government, climate change should also be a priority and that more people should be benefiting from the economic upturn. ‘I think it’s a good thing the cabinet isn’t crowing,’ Pechtold said. The D66 leader added the ‘eternal annual spending power projections’ are a pain in the neck.

In an NOS radio interview Labour’s Lodewijk Asscher called it ‘very painful to see our poor monarch having to announce the scrapping of the dividend tax when his subjects don’t agree.’

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