Hon. Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
"The Prime Minister, apart from his usual political rhetoric and grandstanding, has nothing to say and the budget speech has nothing to offer the Belizean people. We lay bare for all to see the essence of this budget - empty political rhetoric, rounded in petty, vindictive UDP first governance. Well sir, where is your plan for the country? Your obsession with power? Your obsession with a third terms? Render you rudderless and clueless as to Belize's future."

"Mr. Speaker, the 2015/16 budget is a borrow and spend budget. It is a budget founded upon no consultation as usual and grounded in no economic development plan. It offers no new investments in the Belizean economy, no new tourism projects, no new agricultural investments, no manufacturing projects, no new investments in housing development, no investment in arts and culture, youth and sports, no tax reform, no governance reform. The budget for fiscal year 2015/2016 is not only short in length. It is short on vision. It is short on substance. It is short on ideas. It is short on purpose and direction. It is short, Mr. Speaker on solutions to the serious social and economic challenges confronting our beautiful Belize."

"Mr. Speaker, this is a budget delivered by a Prime Minister and a UDP government full of themselves, as I said earlier - intoxicated by power and consumed with their so-called history destiny of a UDP third term. Well, I say to you today and to the Belizean nation, it will not be, it shall not be. Let it be very clear, whenever the Prime Minister calls the elections, we will be ready."

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"In an effort to be fair, you are not going to give the member a chance to correct the fact that he garbled a portion of his speech? Shouldn't it have been call the elections now?"

Hon. John Saldivar, Belmopan
"The member speaks about tax, borrow and spend. Like I said, I don't know where he gets the strength to come up here with that type of rhetoric. That described what prevailed between 1998 and 2008. That is what has landed them in the opposition where they will remain for a very long time. Talk about tax. I can't remember that this UDP administration has raised tax. It must have been sometime early in the first administration, when we were trying to fix the problems that they created for this nation. But, certainly if my memory recall for at least the last three budget presentations, we have not had a raise of tax."

Rt. Hon. Said Musa
"When the Prime Minister can boast of his government's muscularity in spending millions of borrowed money, he makes no apology, for running up a huge budget deficit of 141 million dollars. Over 4% of GDP. And even more disturbing trend, to anybody who has any basic knowledge of economics is, that while he professed that he would have a primary surplus of over 37 million dollars in 2014 - it is now showing that there would be a primary deficit of 50 million dollars. When he is telling us that he is coming back in 6 months' time with another budget. Why is there a need for another budget in 6 months' time, Is this one here is not pappy show? If this one, government budget means absolutely nothing and they are just wasting people's time."

The debate wrapped at 6:00 pm today - and continues tomorrow at 9:00 am. IT should got for a while, as there are about 20 persons still left to speak on the budget. And added to that, there's the debate on the Petrocaribe Loans bill - so it's going to be a loooong day.

But we'll have more from today's debate later on in this newscast.