Friday, September 23, 2005

THIS IS what happens when you create trouble for Zapatero's government:
Administration: No money from income-tax checkoff for AVT

The administration collected 97 million euros from Spanish taxpayers in 2004 through the income-tax return checkoff for "objectives of social interest." Until now, some of that money was destined to the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), officially recognized as an organization operating in the public interest. However, labor and social issues minister Jesús Caldera has decided not to concede any of this money to the AVT because of "the limitation of existing credit in order to deal with all of the programs requesting funds."
The AVT stated that Caldera's decision "contradicts the pronouncements of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the last debate on the state of the nation, when he had no doubts in claiming that his administration had considerably increased aid to the various associations of victims. As events are proving, his words were false, since in a clearly partisan manner the ministry has decided to exclude the AVT from the sharing out of the 97 million euros."
The AVT was the main organizer of the million-man march in Madrid last June, the humongous demontrations against Zapatero's negotiation with ETA (backround here, here and here, in chronological order.) I'm not personally in favor of legalized extorsion, which is what obligatory tax contributions to be handed as subsidies are, but considering they're already mandatory the money should be given according to objective criteria and not on the administration's mood. It's very clear that this decision is a way a punishing "bad behavior" and letting any association know what will happen if they dare to sound a different note than the government.

But wasn't Bush supposed to crush dissent?

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