During the Presidents' Debate on RTL TVI, on Wednesday 2 September in “Rentrée politique”, Georges-Louis Bouchez reaffirmed the MR's priority: protecting those who work, the middle class and those who invest.
Protecting purchasing power
“As soon as a new tax is created, it always ends up falling on the middle class.” For the MR President, the answer therefore does not lie in increasing taxation: “There will be no VAT increase, and the €500 difference between a worker and someone who is not working, announced during the campaign, will indeed be achieved by 2029.”
The MR, on the other hand, advocates increasing income from work: “Tax-free overtime, student work, flexi-jobs… Unlike other parties, our choice is to increase the incomes of those who work.”
Cutting government spending
“The problem is not a lack of revenue: it has consistently represented nearly 50% of GDP for the past 20 years. It's spending that is exploding!” Georges-Louis Bouchez stressed the need to redirect budgetary efforts towards reducing public spending.
“With the same GDP as the Netherlands, we would spend €60 billion less in public money.” For the MR, the state therefore needs to be reformed, aid needs to be better targeted and public services modernised, notably by taking advantage of retirements to avoid automatically replacing every civil servant.
Investing to restart growth
“We need capital to restart the country's growth. Taxing capital more heavily will slow down investment, activity and job creation,” explained the President.
Finally, Georges-Louis Bouchez pointed out that on the issue of energy, only the liberals have a coherent vision: “We are lowering taxes on electricity: this is a genuine tax shift. Taxation on fossil fuels is going up while taxation on electricity is going down.”
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