All the newspapers are full of news and commentary on the 2010 budget which is presented every year on Prince’s Day, the third Tuesday in September. The queen reads a speech written by the prime minister and describes the goals for the coming year.

However the emphasis this year was not so much the budget for 2010, but for the years thereafter. The cabinet says budget cuts of at least 35 billion euros a year, starting in 2011, will be necessary to deal with the global financial crisis. The cabinet’s most important proposal is to set up 20 work groups which will study ways of making cutbacks of 20 percent in 20 sectors of the economy over the next six months.

Budget overshadowed by Wilders’ headscarf tax
The parliamentary debate over the budget was to a great extent overshadowed by populist and emotional headline-grabbing proposals combined with complaints that the cabinet’s plans and actions were indecisive and vague and showed a lack of leadership. In an opinion piece in the quality free newspaper De Pers Peter Middendorp described the parliamentary debate as follows:

“We listened to Pieter van Geel (leader of the Christian Democrats) the man who attempts to sell doing nothing by steadily repeating that ‘doing nothing is not an option’ and called this: Operation Sophie. Sophie was the most popular name for (female) babies last year and symbolised all the children of the Netherlands whom we should not burden with today’s debts…

We listened to Mariette Hamer (chair of the Labour faction), also for an hour and a half… who conjured up her own Joe the Plumber, (George W. Bush’s everyman figure from the 2008 presidential campaign) Then came Wilders. You know that Wilders will always come up with something unexpected… It was a tax on Muslim scarves.

From now on women who want to wear a scarf must go to a municipal counter to fill in some form and pay a thousand euros; otherwise they will not be allowed to wear a scarf in public… I would like to hear something interesting for a change, something reasonable if need be, but we are beginning to understand more clearly how parliamentary reporting could become extinct. Which is why journalists would rather write about debates before they happen than after.”

The conservative mass-circulation De Telegraaf’s front page reads: ‘Tax for top incomes does not stand a chance.’ The paper writes that a proposal by Labour leader Hamer to hit people earning more than the prime minister (181,000 euros) with a 60 percent ‘solidarity’ tax was opposed by a parliamentary majority of Christian Democrats, Christian Union, conservative VVD, Wilders’ Freedom Party and the Democrats. Christian Democrat leader Van Geel described it as “a classic Socialist intervention harmful to the economy and employment”.

Catastrophe
Today’s editorial in De Telegraaf reads “Catastrophe”. The paper writes that the cabinet has had its day and should call elections as soon as possible. “From the cancellation of the child allowance for everyone (including the wealthy) to the vulgar raising of taxes, a Nirvana of everything which is left-wing is on the horizon as never before.”

The newspaper also points to Finance Minister Wouter Bos’s statement that the cabinet may reconsider its promise not to touch the mortgage rebate. This rebate is of great importance for millions of people.” De Telegraaf proposes cutting the number of public employees, getting rid of the public media and large cuts in development assistance to poor countries.”

Another proposal by Wilders, to cut the income of the Royal Family, also gets prominent coverage in De Telegraaf. The Freedom Party leader’s proposal to cut the royal salaries by 20 percent received the support of the Socialist Party, GreenLeft, the Party for the Animals and Proud of the Netherlands. The Labour Party says it will consider the proposal…

“Look happy for a change”
An opinion piece in de Volkskrant, “Look happy for a change”, gives a totally different picture to the debate. Columnist Max Pam writes: “The recession is over, the United States is glowing with hope. But silent lamentations hover over this Free University (a Calvinist university in Amsterdam) cabinet. Pam describes how the MPs listened to the Queen’s speech with sombre faces. “Nowhere was a smile to be seen. Nearly everyone was dressed in black, as if they were attending a funeral.”

He points out that the leaders of the three governing parties all attended the Free University and had the same theological view “and you only have to look at the despondent physiognomy of Minister Piet Hein Donner to know that life is a vale of tears”. He writes that while there is a wave of optimism in the US, the current recession fits into the Calvinist “outlook of cutbacks and moderation, getting rid of things and tightening one’s belt…

The members of the cabinet may have doleful faces, but actually it is in their favour. Which is why we must pay for one year of recession over the coming ten years… You need a sadistic vision to want to enforce these kind of cutbacks for so long.” He says the cabinet would be better off taking the view of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in other words: “Be an optimist!”

Dismantle the other half?
In de Volkskrant Columnist Marcel van Dam writes for the umpteenth time about the continued debate that the government will go bankrupt because the rising number of people with pensions is unaffordable. He writes that it is, in short, a load of bollocks.

He had the Economic Affairs Ministry and Statistics Netherlands analyse what the pension system will cost in 2040 and they all found that there is no basis at all for these doomsday scenarios. He writes that the problems are greatly exaggerated and the increase in productivity will pay for the pension system. “I’ve discussed this quite often with politicians and not once have they presented facts to contradict me.”

According to Van Dam, politicians don’t want to present these figures because reassuring people is the last thing they want to do… After the crisis of the 1980s the parties which ruled the country in turn dismantled half of the welfare system. After this crisis these parties are using more energy than ever before to dismantle the other half.

Why would you want to declare yourself old?
NRC-next Columnist Aaf Brandt Corstius writes that she visited the Fifty Plus Fair in Utrecht. Although she has 17 years to go before turning 50 herself, she asks if the Fifty Plus Fair is not a “bit grim… But it does not keep hundreds of thousands of people from making the pilgrimage to Utrecht, for the biggest fifty plus event in the world.”

Brant Corstius says she can understand why people think of themselves as over 65 because of the pension age and over 18 due to the acquisition of driving licences and the right to vote. But why are people so obsessed with their age? At the fair she found such cheerful exhibits as “Take the diabetes risk test” and the counter “Burial or Cremation?”

She says “I escaped to the WC. There was a big basket of Tena Lady incontinence pads with a sign written above “If breaking out laughing with friends or running after the kids gives you an unpleasant feeling…” The text gave me an unpleasant feeling. I look forward to bursting out with laughter or running after kids. And not in the company of people who voluntarily let themselves be treated like old fools.”