Prinsjesdag 2024, a new course

In this edition of the Tripost, we reflect on the freshly installed cabinet's tax plans announced last week. Handsome work, given the short time frame. Content-wise, it is not very exciting yet. There is some twisting of knobs from left to right, but no landslides. That makes sense. We are getting some limited vistas into the further future, but no one is committing to that. There are some simplifications in the plans that give me goose bumps. The RDW's definition of a van, for example, will become the same as the definition for tax laws. Highly obvious, but not realized under Rutte. It's still thin, but finally there is concrete simplification. I welcome the new Minister of Finance, Eelco Heinen. The pennies are being watched once again in the old-fashioned Dutch way. That is, if there is something in the treasury again, because his predecessor was certainly not thrifty.

How are the neighbours doing?
I feel we are going to catch up with our neighbors in the coming time. First catch up, then firmly take the lead. The Germans are only at the beginning of a serious crisis period. They will be navel-gazing in the near future. After Volkswagen, Mercedes is also coming out with profit warnings. The rest will soon follow. They blame the Chinese, what a weakness. Then you know exactly how much they have been sleeping in the ivory towers in Stuttgart and Wolfsburg. The Chinese just work much harder and have technically caught up with you! The asylum crisis in Germany is far from being at its peak. In the first 4 days after the introduction of border controls (random checks), 180 illegals have already been apprehended. The left speaks of symbol politics. I would shut up for now.

In Belgium, they are once again stuck in formation. This has been a problem for decades and has a structural cause: the country is not a unity. But the consequence is that Belgium functions better when it is led by a half-baked coalition. Other than that, no news about Belgium. I occasionally cross the border to see if it still exists, but it does. I do worry more and more about the occupants of cars with Belgian license plates on the southern section of the A2. Not fluff. I also worry about the increase in drug waste dumping in South Limburg. Not fluff. It does get easier and easier to find content for Flikken Maastricht this way. How much better would I feel if intensive border controls were introduced for traffic from Liège and Verviers? From the Belgians themselves we hear nothing.

So we are doing better. We have already turned a quarter turn and changed course. A lot will have to be done to get our country back on track. We are doing it from the periphery. Nothing good can be expected from the Randstad. We will liberate those when we have done our work in the province. From the outside in. Hold on, poor Randstad people.