Well, the new Dutch centre-left government is getting under steam. We have got a government of Christian Dems (CDA), Labour and Christian Union (CU). They have made a coalition covenant or regeeraccoord, as is usual in Dutch multi-party democracy.
Labour party leader Wouter Bos is now sitting on the money chest, he is the Treasurer. A Dutch idiom "tying a cat to bacon" comes to mind.
Treasurer Bos is now complaining that there are some bears on his road. He has difficulties in balancing the 2008 budget. He estimates he will be about 2 Billion Euros short. On a rougly 158 Billion Euro annual budget. One (1) Euro is worth a bit more than one (1) US dollar, but one can say they are rougly equivalent.
The biggest bear on the road is one Treasurer Bos let out of cage when he was still Labour leader Bos. When Mr. Wouter Bos negotiated the coalition covenant with his partners, he demanded a pardon for 26.000 failed asylum seekers. These asylum seekers had exhausted all legal means to find asylum and had been turned down at all decision points. They had to be deported. However, Mr. Bos demanded an amnesty and he got it. Labour leader Bos knows full well that most of these immigrants will become Labour voters in the future, so for his party this is a long term investment and the beauty of the scheme is they can pass on the expense to the tax payer.
Which is why Treasurer Bos now has trouble to make ends meet. The amnesty will cost an estimated 500 to 800 million Euros. There are estimates (Dutch) that it will be much more. So the amnesty is responsible for a quarter to a third of of the bears on Treasurer Bos' road.
I have got all faith in Treasurer Wouter Bos' ability though. He surely will find the money to finance his party's vote buying scheme. Good to know that we are led by such very able people.
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