Against my expectations, the dutch political party D66 has made a deal with the government to support their policies in the senate of the dutch parliament. This has enabled the government to make a deal that I’m not that happy about, even though some of the measures are not half bad, like the reform of the unemployment benefits.

The most striking thing is that the government is expecting to increase revenue by lowering a taxation on people with a controlling interest in their companies paying themselves dividends. The government looks at a pre-crisis example of a similar measure as their lead example. Back then, many companies were making a profit. Nowadays, close to half of the companies is not making a profit, so it is unlikely that this scenario will unfold as the government sees it. They expect to get a net gain of 1bn. in tax revenue. As many have noted before me, this is not a realistic expectation, and it will hurt our bottom line when it comes to the national debt. This boils down to Greek style bookkeeping.

Net result: More debt for the state. A bad thing.