In a fiery speech at the 1 May congress in Mons, MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez issued a bold call for a 'Tax-Cutting Cure'.
By highlighting the need for courageous reforms and pro-work policies, the MR challenges the left with a fresh and dynamic vision for the country's future.
In this powerful speech, the President stressed the urgency of acting before the 9 June elections, positioning the MR as the true driving force of change for lasting prosperity and a fair society."
Full speech
A thousand thanks for your welcome!
A thousand thanks for your welcome! This reception warms my heart, your motivation is a pleasure to see today! It is full and complete, and we will see it again in the coming days. Today is a special day because it is the last big gathering before the elections of 9 June, on a subject we managed to put back on the public agenda: work. Until now, we had mostly talked about cheques or social aid, but very little about work, in the French-speaking world.
I grew up 500 metres from here, in Quaregnon, on Rue Jules Destrée. I often say I had every quality to become a socialist, but precisely because I know them too well, and above all because I have seen their track record, I have been vaccinated for life against fatalism. I have seen what dependency and an overload of social aid can bring about. It has destroyed hope and whole areas. It has drastically narrowed the horizons and prospects of thousands of young people and children. The problem of Wallonia and Brussels is not economic hardship, but cultural hardship. Just because your father was unemployed, and your grandfather too, does not mean you are also destined to depend on social aid. It is to them, above all, that I speak. There is hope: do not give in to fatalism! There is another way. You too have the right to succeed in life, you have the right to earn money, you have the right to reclaim your dignity. Because yes, work is more than a wage: it is a place in society, it is the possibility of leaving your circumstances behind. I say to everyone that even in Jemappes it is possible to take your destiny into your own hands thanks to the Mouvement Réformateur.
Some question the MR's style, our will, our stubbornness and our proactiveness. This style comes from somewhere. Not a single day of my presidency has gone by without me thinking of those women and men from the former Walloon industrial basins in Mons, La Louvière, Liège, Charleroi, Brussels or Tubize. There has not been a single moment when I did not think of them, when I was not angry at the lies, at the cheque policy, at the miserabilism. We must not stop at that anger. This anger must give us positive energy, the energy of those who will carry out reforms and will not fear the truth. Today, ladies and gentlemen, if the left resents us so much, it is because the further it drifts from the truth, the more it hates those who speak it. Be proud of this discourse of truth.
When I see today the presence of Roberto D'Orazio, whom I ask you to applaud, because it truly takes courage to come here when you come from the left. When I see the presence of these people who are joining us, I tell myself that we haven't won yet, but that we have already achieved something great. These people never fought for benefits, but for the dignity of workers. That dignity is not tied to benefits, but to training, to employment, thanks to these women and men who make something of their lives, first for their children but also for society as a whole. We have already won one battle: the MR is the true party of work, the great popular movement we have always wanted to be!
Faced with these 50 shades of the left, we must offer an exciting and promising project. A project of reforms, without promising the moon, because we never talk about public finances, yet they are our common heritage. Every child born in this region carries a debt of 60,000 euros. That much money they could have put towards a project for a house, starting a business, leisure. Simply to be able to choose their own life. The MR is not the movement of giving everything away for free. It is the movement that wants the budgetary rule of not exceeding a 3% deficit written into the Constitution. Those who are destroying Social Security are those who spend more than they have, who create deficits and keep them going. I, the boy from Mons, am deeply attached to Social Security, and that is why we want public finances to be managed properly, why we want workers to be rewarded, because this Social Security lives thanks to the 4.5 million people who work and make efforts for our country.
To enable more people to work, we will need reforms.
The first will be at the level of education. More than half of jobseekers in Wallonia have little or no qualifications, and it is worse in Brussels. That is the crux of the problem. We must give them the tools. That is why our ministers Pierre-Yves Jeholet, Valérie Glatigny and Françoise Bertieaux wanted to restore the standing of our schools. This is not about financial elitism. We have refinanced scholarships and support for success, but we must also reward merit, effort and skills. We now want to lower compulsory schooling to age 3, we want to check that every child can read, write and count by the third year of primary school. In a whole range of schools, children are being handed diplomas without basic skills. The solution, Mrs Désir, is not to let children into the third year of nursery school without stopping them before the third year of secondary school if they are struggling. That is irresponsible. It is irresponsible to let the years go by, to miss the key years, and only realise at the start of adolescence that, with such a delay, their future prospects will be ruined. The liberal project is one of equal opportunity, whatever your religion, your nationality, your skin colour. The State's role is to give you the tools to take charge of your own life, and we will achieve that through education reform.
As for vocational training, it must no longer be occupational. We must fund training centres in proportion to the people returned to employment. We must stop funding the 7th or 8th course just to let some people drop out of the statistics. Vocational training must be an asset enabling people to change their lives. We must ensure that no one is locked into their job. The days of keeping the same job for life are over. People want change and flexibility. That is why we are proposing to limit unemployment benefits over time as well as introducing a right to resign, because we believe it is better to enable people to change the direction of their lives rather than send them into unemployment or keep them on sometimes fictitious disability certificates. Reform will also come through greater flexibility in the labour market and more trust placed in workers.
Work is at the heart of our project. It must be revalued through pay, but also through words and respect. The work you do at school, in associations, in sport, in helping a neighbour or an isolated person, in your job: work is the engine of our development and our well-being. If we want to better reward workers, we must stop taxing them. I address myself to Raoul, the real boss of the left. The PS and Ecolo run after Raoul, as we saw with the Landscape Decree. I would like to say two things to Raoul. First, Raoul, your societal project is not new. It has been applied in dozens of countries at various points in history. Communism has brought poverty, violence, misgovernance and social revolt. So today, Raoul, I have a piece of advice for you, which also applies to Paul and Jean-Marc. I recommend a “Tax-Cutting” cure. Our country is the world champion of taxation. How can anyone imagine adding another 10 to 20 billion euros in taxes? They will tell you it only concerns the ultra-rich. But Ecolo wants a tax reform for people earning less than 4,000 euros gross a month. Did you know that a teacher with 10 to 15 years' experience earns more than that? I say this to all teachers. No, you are not rich. You too deserve a tax cut. The MR will never divide the middle class!
This tax cut will start with a major element, which has a technical name: raising the tax-exempt threshold. Today, you start paying tax as soon as you earn a little more than 10,000 euros a year. The minimum income allowance, the lowest benefit, starts at 15,000 euros a year. How can we reward workers if they pay tax before even reaching the lowest social benefit? With the MR, there will be no tax before reaching the amount of the first social benefit. That's not all. I saw a video of Paul Magnette saying that workers must always earn more than non-workers. I felt it was echoing us. But does he, who nevertheless wants to add more tax, know that as soon as you earn one euro more than the current ceiling of 15,000 euros, you are already taxed at 40%? So we need more progressivity in taxation. It is normal for the broadest shoulders to contribute more.
But the middle class are not the broadest shoulders. These people must contribute, but we must stop crushing them with taxes. This middle class must be able to live decently from their work and earn at least 500 euros net more than social benefits.
We also want to support the women and men who take risks and put their personal assets on the line to start their own small business. They are the real bosses in Wallonia and Brussels. They are not great capital magnates who left Belgium long ago. Our bosses employ a few people and risk their lives to give others an activity. That is why we want to lower the tax rate on SMEs to 15%, because risk must be rewarded. I take this opportunity to tell the self-employed, those who create activity, that they can look at themselves in the mirror and be proud of themselves. Because at the MR, we do not consider the boss to be the enemy. We consider the boss to be the driving force of society!
To conclude, two things: thank you for everything you have done, and in particular to my staff. These five years have been eventful, but all these efforts have not been in vain, when I see this room, your motivation, the posters in the street. Next, I ask you to give everything. Five weeks remain. Have confidence. Have the confidence of a 4-year-old child wearing a Batman costume! That child thinks he can do anything. He is not afraid. Do not be afraid. There is no greater failure than not trying. This time, we are taking risks, we are addressing a different audience, we are going to places that are not favourable to us. It is a risk. But the population is waiting for our project. Our ideas are supported by a majority of the population. We must explain it to them, show them that this is our project. Our 376 candidates must convince. Our lists have never been stronger. They combine experience and renewal. These lists are beautiful because they reflect the image of our society. Be proud to be liberals and tell yourselves that on 9 June, thanks to the MR, the future is brightening!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMadsNULhU8&ab_channel=DREAMR