Despite the fact that we are in the worst economic recession St. Maarten has ever seen, and have the highest unemployment in our history and most small businesses are on the brink of bankruptcy. One would think common sense tells us that tax reduction and not tax increases are needed for private sector job growth to lead us out of this depression. Tax increases will discourage any investment that businesses of all sizes need now to grow and add jobs. Instead of encouraging investors to take risks on creative new business ideas, tax increases will have the opposite effect. Start by selling off all governments owned companies and reduce the size and waste of government. With the funds received from the sale of all government companies, we can pay off the debt of not only St. Maarten but also pay off the debt of St. Kitts and Anguilla. Everyone knows that government owned companies are personal piggy banks for and only benefit some politicians and their political cronies. Look at how efficient the receiver's office, SVB and TelEM are tomorrow morning. Government has no business of being in the business of business. Governments' first responsibility is to take care of our safety and security and to protect our borders from the massive invasion of criminal aliens, yet they are not addressing this issue at all to date. Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don't matter! In a one on one debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Western Europe, Venezuela and North Korea. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and travelling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the "evil capitalist empire" when they were only 50 miles from the "workers' paradise" of Cuba? If this government does not halt and reverse this continuing move towards more and more socialism, which will only tax everyone out of their homes and businesses, we may just soon see a tea party type movement arising here on St. Maarten. "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." Thomas Jefferson.