Oh, ok...
To begin, it all started 9 years ago with the instatement of the first Government called "Paars" (Purple), which was a coalition (all our governments are coalitions, because we have an equal representation democracy) between the pragmatic, ultra-democratic D66, the socialist PvdA and the neo-right wing VVD. So we had a mix of everything, basically, the ultimate government. I mentioned the lack of criticism on this government above, but they did relatively ok, they just didn't spend their money well.
Now, after the short-lived pervious government Balkenende-I, we have Balkenende-II. Balkey is our prime-minister. You can spot him easy, he looks like Harry Potter. Effectively, he's not the boss, Gerrit Zalm is. Gerrit Zalm has always done Finance. So the government came up with the brilliant idea that we should be rid of our nation's debt by 2007. Which is a good idea, except that we're in a recession, and recession-period are notoriously bad times to start cutting funds and raising taxes, yet they do.
So most section of Holland's infamous public healthcare are kinda fading, hospitals are getting worse, care of the disabled is fast becoming a joke, our schooling system has already decreased to half of what it was 10 years ago, etc. etc.
Internationally, we haven't been doing too shiny either. Our current government is basically be ass-rape material for the EU and taking it all. Our complaining about France's behaviour is pretty much the first complaining we've done. (for the uninformed, the EU has budgettary rules, which France is breaking, but it doesn't have to pay the usual fines, because it's big. Holland and other countries in the meantime have to slave their ass off to follow these rules)
Mostly, though, it's just damaging. It'll be fun the be the only Western country not to have any kind of national debt in 2007, but we'd be facing humungous social problems, which we'll have to make loans for to rebuild. The Dutch wellfare state was very carefully built up, and they're...well...fucking it up.
Plus Balkenende wants to make weed illegal. He doesn't dare, though, he'll never get backing from the 2nd Chamber (=Congress)
To begin, it all started 9 years ago with the instatement of the first Government called "Paars" (Purple), which was a coalition (all our governments are coalitions, because we have an equal representation democracy) between the pragmatic, ultra-democratic D66, the socialist PvdA and the neo-right wing VVD. So we had a mix of everything, basically, the ultimate government. I mentioned the lack of criticism on this government above, but they did relatively ok, they just didn't spend their money well.
Now, after the short-lived pervious government Balkenende-I, we have Balkenende-II. Balkey is our prime-minister. You can spot him easy, he looks like Harry Potter. Effectively, he's not the boss, Gerrit Zalm is. Gerrit Zalm has always done Finance. So the government came up with the brilliant idea that we should be rid of our nation's debt by 2007. Which is a good idea, except that we're in a recession, and recession-period are notoriously bad times to start cutting funds and raising taxes, yet they do.
So most section of Holland's infamous public healthcare are kinda fading, hospitals are getting worse, care of the disabled is fast becoming a joke, our schooling system has already decreased to half of what it was 10 years ago, etc. etc.
Internationally, we haven't been doing too shiny either. Our current government is basically be ass-rape material for the EU and taking it all. Our complaining about France's behaviour is pretty much the first complaining we've done. (for the uninformed, the EU has budgettary rules, which France is breaking, but it doesn't have to pay the usual fines, because it's big. Holland and other countries in the meantime have to slave their ass off to follow these rules)
Mostly, though, it's just damaging. It'll be fun the be the only Western country not to have any kind of national debt in 2007, but we'd be facing humungous social problems, which we'll have to make loans for to rebuild. The Dutch wellfare state was very carefully built up, and they're...well...fucking it up.
Plus Balkenende wants to make weed illegal. He doesn't dare, though, he'll never get backing from the 2nd Chamber (=Congress)