This budget has coined a new definition of rich. In the United States, President Barack Obama was very careful (on the advice of his wisest economists) to determine what defines "rich"—not by the car one drives and the gasoline one could afford, but by the income per household.

But in this banana republic of Trinidad and Tobago, you are rich if you drive an Audi, BMW, Cefiro, Mercedes, Tiguan, Jaguar, et al. If you could afford the car, you could or should be able to afford the gas—or so the thinking goes. Conversely, you are poor if you drive an Almera, Corolla or Hyundai.

The filthy rich owners of a Nissan Teana who plied their car for hire will now be forced out of the competition by their poorer taxi-driver colleagues who drive cars of a lesser ilk. Those rich folks who spent $240 per week to fill a 60-litre tank will now spend $345 per week or $1,380 per four-week month and $1,725 per five-week month.

Multiply the aforementioned tear-jerking figures by two if you need to fill up your Audi twice per week. This appears to be a very new and disturbing discrimination against those perceived to be rich, and will only serve to cement such misperceptions in the minds of thieves, robbers and bandits.

And so I say to the Prime Minister, your apparent poor-appeasing, rich-pillaging budget will still not stop us on the other side from marching against the Section 34 fiasco and your colossal waste-of-time budget.

Only this time around, a new class of marcher will be in the throngs of supporters who, on the clarion call of Dr Keith Christopher Rowley, will descend on the city of Port of Spain like a swarm of angry locusts, screaming, on a mission of destruction. This new class of marcher will have to leave their BMWs and Audis at home due to the new gas prices, board a "maxi" and head into town. I am calling on the Opposition leader to call the date. We ready.

Dave McKenzie

D'Abadie