This weekend several political parties decried failures of the proposed 2006 federal budget. The official debates about the issue are planned to begin on November the 28th, but many parties have already drawn their swords. The Socialists say they will not accept the 2006 budget as long as it included the ’punitive cuts.’ The UDC Party gathered on Sunday and decided to refuse any new taxes and thus rejected the 2006 budget plan entirely. The Socialist Party met on Saturday and made the case that ’Bourgeois Parties’ were not being rational because they no longer bothered to justify the reasons for their budget cuts and because most of the cuts were in departments being led by Socialist ministers, i.e. the foreign affairs department, as well as the transportation and environment department. The right-wingers argue that the budget has to be balanced by making budget cuts, not by raising taxes. The Swiss government’s yearly deficit has been growing by around 4 billion francs every year, to reach a total debt of some 130 billion francs.

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