Video Poker

Video Poker

"Raising VAT was a mistake" announces T. Băsescu in hopes that the Government will bring back the old 19% and, in exchange, "tax all income, including pensions". Both presidential assertions are correct. And both lead to the Government's resignation.

Of course raising VAT represents nothing else other than the desperate bumbling of a confused and incompetent Boc Government pretending to do something in the face of the crisis. Of course it's a suffocating measure for an already asphyxiated economy. But if that's true, President Băsescu should have asked for Prime Minister Boc's resignation before the 24% VAT rate was introduced. Just as he publicly assumed from Cotroceni Palace the cut in salaries and pensions, he could have announced Boc's departure and the solution of taxing all income, including pensions of under 10 million Romanian Old Lei, as a task for the new government.

The taxing of all income that Mr. Băsescu is asking for presumes giving up on the 16% flat rate tax. If we consider the taxing scale that worked prior to the flat rate tax, the 16% level corresponds to a certain amount of income. Everything above that, which is being taxed at 16%, would imply income not being taxed. A good part of the income of a person that makes, for example, 200 million Romanian Old Lei per month remains untaxed in the flat rate tax system. And, in reverse, for income of, let's say, under 10 million Romanian Old Lei, a 16% tax represents extreme overtaxation. Therefore, not letting any income go untaxed means a progressive income tax rate from, let's say, 1% for pensions of under 10 million Romanian Old Lei, and up to 50% for large income - that's giving up the flat rate tax. And according to the "doctrine" and statements of Democratic-Liberal Party leaders, with T. Băsescu at the vanguard, without the flat rate tax they would abandon power.

But that is logical reasoning. However, Mr. Băsescu is not a logical person, he is a... logician of sorts, who at all times shows his voters various Find the Lady combinations, cause "where she's at nobody knows", that are just good enough to be believed by these, oh so naive!, people. Until the other day, the decisions of the Constitutional Court, which had always pleased Mr. President, had to be respected without discussion; now the Constitutional Court is guilty of "politicizing" a decision. So His Majesty is the absolute leader of the Government, bravo, hooray and all that; he is a strong-arming, strong-willed leader, but the wretched government raised VAT to 24% all on its own and the President is distancing himself from the Government. Bravo, I say again! Besides the flow rates of rivers, which ship's captain Băsescu calculates in his head, his every public statement shows just how widespread stupidity is among Romanians. Maybe that is why, in gas stations or in bookstores, when people ask me: "What are these guys doing to us, Mr. Popescu?" and I ask: "Well, didn't you vote for them?", everybody, and I mean everybody, denies it like they would renounce the Devil during the Inquisition. Nobody tells me they voted for Băsescu anymore. And online, the number of people accusing me that I determined T. Băsescu's election in the 2004 Romanian Television final debate, and that I struck at Geoană too hard in 2009, is becoming the majority.

Mr. Băsescu knows too damn well that it's too late to cancel the VAT raise. And he still hits at that measure, with the major risk of intensifying the impression of complete and utter inconsistency that the Executive is already impressing on the populace. This whole state of confusion he's created through his latest statements follows the same eternal purpose: to place him above any and all guilt. The Government is guilty of raising VAT, Parliament is guilty of contesting the pension cut with the Constitutional Court, the Court is guilty of having made a "political" decision, the press is guilty of denigrating authorities and endangering the lives of those displaced by the floods (there goes that "the press is a risk to national security" thing again!), those displaced are guilty of not being able to swim and breathe like fish, and pensioners are guilty of being a rock on the neck of our drowning nation. I, Băsescu, have spoken.

But why does he even do it anymore, considering he has no third term waiting for him and he doesn't even know what to do with this one? Because Mr. Băsescu was never interested in politics other than as a video poker machine, a supplier of adrenaline rushes. It's his drug. And even if Romanians die by the hundreds, Mr. Băsescu will just keep working on his image of overlord of all that exists, and guilty of nothing.

That doesn't mean that, given Romania's current state, a replacement of the Boc cabal could provide anything else but suffering to the people. Unemployment, hardships, humiliation, a drop in longevity, these are all unavoidable. The only thing Romanians could still dream of getting from another Government is some justice in the face of so much adversity.

P.S. President Băsescu's idea of taking diseases out of the body is also revolutionary for our collapsing medical system: "Some people don't have tonsillitis and are retired on cause of illness. Others, because their appendicitis (sic) has been removed". So, there you go, you just take out the disease and the person remains with their organs (tonsils, appendix) intact and healthy. Doctors currently leaving our country could then be replaced with shamans.

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