Morales Government
The Morales government had implemented a tax increase because it was hoping to recoup $83 million in unpaid mining taxes. The government is also seeking to increase this tax income "to as much as $300 million" due to increased international demand for its natural resources. Morales has also stated that his goal is to nationalize Bolivia’s entire mining sector, of which this tax increase is seen as a first step. The Morales government had maintained that the "tax increase would be relatively minor for the cooperatives". The Morales government had attempted to head-off the demonstration by announcing on Feb. 5, 2007 that the tax increase was not directed at the 50,000 miners who are co-op members but at larger private mining companies. His government announced that the cooperatives' taxes would be "frozen at current levels until further notice". This did not dissuade the thousands of protestors who had already gathered nearby the capital in the less affluent city of El Alto.
Read more about this topic: Bolivian Miners' Protest Of 2007, Political Positions
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“The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)