Poland's PiS government falls into its own trap on the issue of disabled children

The recent actions of the Polish government seem to become more and more chaotic. After the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy, Elżbieta Rafalska, failed to quench the fire caused by the protest of parents of disabled children in the buildings of Parliament, President Andrzej Duda has decided to intervene into the conflict, unexpectedly and much to the surprise of the government.

In reply, the parents have instantly shown him his promises from his electoral campaign which have not been kept to.

These promises were to immediately increase benefits for the families in care of their disabled children, benefits that have been scandalously low in Poland for many years.

As soon as Mr Duda had taken over as President, he gladly forgot about these promises of his.

Instead, the Minister of Social Policy in the new PiS government has readily embarked on the 500+ programme, a program of financial help for families having more than one child. The programme does not discriminate between families which are poor and those families which are financially well-off.

Mr Duda has then promised money to the disabled children and their families, but he risks nothing saying that since the money has to be found by Minister Elżbieta Rafalska and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The latter has thus been forced, so to speak, to arrive in the Sejm to meet the families in question, but has not managed to quench the fire, too. On the contrary, he added fuel to the fire by declaring a necessity to increase tax for the more affluent people in order to get the money to cover the costs of the benefits the parents of the disabled children demand.

And here we come to the core of the problem: several months ago when good economic conditions in the world resulted in increased income to the state budget in Poland, the then Prime Minister Beata Szydło pompuously declared that it was enough not to steal and there would be money for everything in the state budget.

And we did not have to wait long - the so called practitioners-residents went on strike and called on the state budget to pay them more causing a crisis in the result of which the Minister of Health resigned.

And when at a PiS convention last Saturday PM Morawiecki announced an intention to pay 300 zloties to the parents of each pupil who starts a school-year in September (shortly before the local elections in November) and also promised billions for pensioniers, he gave a clue to the voters that the state budget is botomless. It was only a matter of time for other social groups to say "we check". And thus the PiS government has fallen into its own trap: it discovered that making the method of giving away budget money the main weapon to gain popularity (recently broken by the "rewards scandal" in which the ministers of that government paid out generously to themselves) may have its serious restrictions. It is not enough just not to steal, as Beata Szydło said, - one has to take other people's money to finance someone's endless populist promises!

(post based on the commentary of Michał Sułdrzyński in the RZECZPOSPOLITA daily)

1.Those are not populist promises (and even if they are, you're missing the point.) PiS is the EU, European socialist party and par per curse they're following other European countries examples with their welfare state policy.

2. Politicians and their promises - are you a child?
3.They policy is chaotic and their are doing very little - that true. However they are doing something at least, matter how badly or imperfectly. Previous governments, especially corrupted to t he core PO were doing nothing except for thievery, opening the country to corruption and selling out Poland's national interest for pat on a shoulder and free rein in suckling taxpayer's money for personal gain.

I think a lot of is it a knee-jerk response to the falling popularity of the party in the polls. They had it easy for 2 years, but the opposition has woken up and are starting to land blow after blow, especially with the bonuses being handed out to everyone and everyone. Now they're trying to hand out money to everyone, but the middle classes are particularly unhappy with the idea. What worked once in 2015 isn't working in 2018, possibly because the centrist voters know that there's no room in the budget for further no-questions asked handouts.


That was quite possibly one of the worst moves that he could have made. If he had announced that bonuses would no longer be paid to workers in the public sector and in publicly owned companies, and that the considerable savings would be used to pay more benefits to severely disabled children and adults, it would have been fine. Instead, he's managed to upset the "rich" (who are usually not rich at all) and as you said, he added fuel to the fire.

PiS are also rapidly discovering that it's very difficult to buy voters in the long term, as they always want more and more.

BS, what are you trying to pull? They are pathetic little fools and everyone see them for what they are. The falling popularity is due to PiS own follies. Mostly it is down to the disparity of between their fiery rhetoric and their timid actions.


Never heard about bonuses? That is standard practise of gov in Poland for the last 30 years. I suppose if all your info comes from TVN or some partisan websites......


Sure. Besides it shows that he is a socialist at heart, no for from his daddy then.

It's unbelievable what these people need to go through.
I think they have simply forgotten about them giving away money to people who could actually go to work.

That is full-scale socialism! - exclaims Paweł Kukiz of "Kukiz'15" on the recent proposal of PM Morawiecki to tax the richest people in order to raise money to finance higher benefits for the disabled children whose parents have been occupying the Sejm since the 18th of April. The cost of increasing these benefits children is estimated at one billion zloties.

- Mothers of those children want money? Let's tax people at once. Miners' salaries are too low? Let's tax people on the falling rain. No money for the police force? No problem. Let's tax the shop-keepers then - continues the leader of "Kukiz'15".

- I am very much surprised that PM Morawiecki has not yet been cooperating on that with Adrian Zandberg of the "Razem" party*. Janosik together with Robin Hood - it is simply tremendous! - adds Paweł Kukiz, former singer and performer, leader of the "Piersi" group in 1984-2013.

* 'Razem' party, an extremely left-wing and socialist party in Poland founded by a Polish man born and raised in Danemark, has a programme of 75% taxation level for the top earning people.

you are a puzzle to me Ziemowit - what party do you support and why?

I think he is a generally sensible person who has his own views - not merely support one side or the other.

This tax is dumb and it is becoming clear that Morawiecki is not very astute. I don't think he was really running the bank, more that he wa a figurehead for Santander to avoid political grief. Per se I don't think increased tax is a bad idea as taxes are pretty low but it should be done in a structured way and not written on the back of an envelope. I would have no problem with higher taxes if I though the govt was going to spend them wisely and not on pork for all the people that support them.

the term in Poland is 'written on the knee' (napisany na kolanie) which is how almost all Polish laws are written (leading to lapses in enforcement for reasons of sanity while they try to sort out the mess)

everything from PiS on this issue has been off key and tone deaf. No matter how popular at one point, people get sick of any ruling party after a time...

I have my views and they largely are similar to that of PiS - that's why I asked what party does Ziemowit support and why - also I don't really get a notion that Ziemowit is so very reasonable to be honest

I think there's some truth in that. His rise was strangely suspicious, though it's generally seen that he was faithful to the Irish masters at the time and had no qualms about increasing profits at BZWBK at the expense of people (see also; CHF mortgages).


It's been nothing short of a disaster. Morawiecki, far from showing stability, appears to be blundering from one mistake to another. It seems that his lack of experience in politics is showing more than anything. The reaction to this "solidarity tax" has been incredibly negative, and as Ziemowit showed, even Kukiz is gaining some support over it.

PIS government falling on many issues

I hope that Polish American Corey Lewandowski that is now in Belgrade, coming over `Sarmatian connection` and have plan how should decent Sarmatians rid themselves of EU`s insanity and push things in direction of Intermarium. Definitely better to come to defiant Serbia and Belgrade then to rely on Duda. If Serbians can`t push things, nobody can`t.



Corey Lewandowski is seen in Belgrade

BDW, Corey Lewandowski is one of those who did great service to the world by hijacking Hillary Clinton and supporting Trump.

Just reading Lewandowski`s comments in Belgrade. First, he don`t blame Serbia for aggravation relations with USA but as he used exact words (citation) ``rotten Hillary and Obama`` and, Lewandowski calling Serbia to more actively cooperate with Trump.