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The vote of confidence

Jul 03,2018 - Last updated at Jul 03,2018

In less than one week, the government of Prime Minister Omar Razzaz will face the vote of confidence in the Lower House of Parliament, amidst conflicting signals on which way deputies would cast their votes.

The prime minister and his colleagues are, therefore, busy "talking" with members of the Lower House and discussing various policy issues with them in a bid to gauge the pulse of the deputies on key issues facing the country.

Unfortunately though, what seems to take the lions' share of the dialogue with deputies is only the controversial income tax legislation, which caused the resignation of the former government.

Surely there are other major challenges facing the country than just the income tax controversy. Jordan is now facing grave dangers from the outside, including the influx of hundreds of thousands of new Syrian civilians approaching the northern border of the country seeking sanctuary. Feeding them and providing them with the basic necessities of life, including medical services, is certainly one of the issues on the national agenda, even though they will stay put on Syrian soil. The displaced Syrians are now facing the hot summer weather and if no solution to their plight is in sight, they will eventually face the hardships of the winter.

The wave of inflationary trend and the high cost of living are also top agenda issues, and so is the national budget deficit, which has swollen to about $38 billion according to latest accounts. How this bulging national debt multiplied many times over in the past twenty years is a top priority for the country.

As how much people would have to pay in taxes is uppermost on the peoples' agenda, but let us not make it the only policy issue on the basis of which the new government would win or lose the next week vote of confidence by Parliament.

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