As the Dominican government lays out its 2026-2027 national budget, the country’s opposition is pushing back against what it calls a misplaced focus on large-scale capital projects, urging policymakers to center the daily economic struggles of ordinary families. Opposition Leader Jesma Paul-Victor made her case in a response to the budget presentation Thursday, framing skyrocketing cost of living as the single most pressing issue facing the Dominican public today. While the governing administration has celebrated its headline infrastructure investments, Paul-Victor says working-class households measure national economic health very differently. “Why is life becoming so expensive?” she posed, pointing to the everyday pressure points that shape household finance: grocery checkout lines, gas station pumps, pharmacy co-pays, monthly rent bills, back-to-school uniform costs, monthly energy invoices, and long-term savings goals that feel increasingly out of reach. In Paul-Victor’s view, no budget can claim success when gleaming new infrastructure coexists with rising economic anxiety across the country’s households. Even as official macroeconomic indicators trend upward, she argues, millions of ordinary Dominicans continue to battle rising costs for the non-negotiable goods and services that form the foundation of daily life. “Food, housing, transportation, utilities, healthcare, education. These are not optional expenses. They are necessities,” she emphasized. Paul-Victor did acknowledge the government’s targeted interventions to ease household strain, including temporary tax and duty cuts on a selection of essential goods, calling these measures a welcome source of short-term relief. Still, she stressed that temporary assistance is no replacement for long-term, structural policy change: “relief alone cannot become permanent policies.” Offering guarded praise for several of the government’s existing tax reforms, Paul-Victor called for incremental adjustments to extend support further. She thanked the administration for introducing a 10 percent flat income tax, eliminating compounding calculations for import goods taxes, and extending a key industrial policy measure, which the finance minister has slated to run through September. Instead, Paul-Victor proposed extending the policy through December to deliver longer-lasting support for local businesses and households. The opposition leader laid out a clear alternative policy vision, arguing that sustained improvements in living standards depend on centering policies that shape everyday household financial security, both directly and indirectly. She explained that the country’s long-term goal must be expanding household purchasing power by boosting local productivity, supporting wage growth, and cutting the structural costs of doing business across Dominica. Paul-Victor framed stable employment as the critical link between overall economic expansion and broad-based social progress. “When people have stable employment, families become more secure. Businesses expand, communities thrive, government revenues increase,” she noted. Addressing the finance minister’s recent boast that Dominica hit 4.5 percent economic growth last year — outpacing the global average of 3.5 percent and the regional average of 3 percent — Paul-Victor questioned whether that growth has translated into tangible gains for ordinary people. “But was this growth only visible in concrete? It must be visible in kitchens, in pay packets, in business incomes, in opportunities for young people,” she said. Paul-Victor noted the budget is being drafted at a make-or-break moment for the small island nation, which faces a cascade of external pressures: volatile global economic conditions, growing climate threats that disproportionately hurt small island developing states, shifting global investment flows, and evolving international scrutiny of the country’s citizenship-by-investment program, a point the finance minister himself acknowledged in his budget address. These challenging global realities demand careful, proactive governance rather than overconfident complacency, Paul-Victor argued. “They require diversification rather than dependence. They require institutions that command confidence at home and abroad,” she emphasized. Rejecting expectations that budget debate would devolve into empty partisan sloganeering, Paul-Victor positioned the opposition as a constructive partner for national progress. “We reject that approach. The people of Dominica deserve something better. They deserve an opposition prepared not merely to criticize but to contribute. Not merely to identify weaknesses, but to propose solutions. Not merely to point out risks, but to offer alternatives,” she said. In line with this approach, she called for strict accountability for all public spending: every dollar allocated by parliament must deliver measurable public value, every major project must produce clear tangible benefits, and every campaign and policy promise must be judged on its actual results. Turning to the employment impact of the country’s recent infrastructure boom, Paul-Victor raised urgent questions about the long-term stability of the construction-sector jobs created by these projects. “The question before us, however, is what happens after construction ends? When the airport is completed, when the geothermal plant is fully operational, when the marina opens, when major road projects conclude, will sufficient permanent employment exist to absorb the skilled workers who have contributed to these national projects?” she asked. To address this gap, Paul-Victor proposed that every large public infrastructure investment must be paired with a formal, transparent employment transition strategy. “Construction must lead to commerce. Commerce must lead to enterprise. Enterprise must lead to permanent jobs,” she explained. “That is how investment becomes lasting prosperity.”