In parliament on Tuesday, President Armengol insisted that tax increases are not being contemplated as part of the Balearics recovery plan. She added that during the crisis there have in fact been deferrals and reductions, such as port taxes.
Armengol was responding to Jorge Campos of Vox, who wanted the president to "commit" to not raising taxes. He criticised the government's management of the crisis, arguing that taxpayers will be paying for it and referring to an "ideological budget" of 60 million euros. While there is an "unprecedented crisis", there is government spending on, among other things, "dozens of senior officials" - twelve million euros in salaries for political appointments. Campos also stated that contagions are "uncontrolled" and demanded that there be tests on passengers at travel points of origin.
The president said that at times of crisis, "strong administrations" are necessary, and she highlighted the 400 million euros obtained by the Balearics from the Spanish government's 16,000 million euro aid package for the country's regions. This 400 million is "good news", as is the agreement for the European Union reconstruction plan, by which Spain will receive 140,000 million euros from the recovery fund, of which 72,700 million will be direct aid.
Although saying that there is no plan to raise taxes in the Balearics, Armengol observed that in order to guarantee services, there needs to be a principle of "who earns the most should pay the most". She was referring to a Spanish government intention to increase income tax for high earners. Campos maintained that tax increases will not harm those with "great fortunes" but will affect workers.
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Contemplate: “to spend time considering a possible future action, or to consider one particular thing for a long time in a serious and quiet way” In other words, she has already decided to do so, but will blame central government when she does, the first one being VAT