The CSSD proposed lower taxes for all those making less than 30,000 Kc ($1,200) a month and that's 4 million people. But why does the ODS see this as a problem? ODS deputy chairman Ivan Langer said that "at the very last minute the CSSD copied the ODS draft." It is true that the ODS demands lower taxes for all, not just those with low and medium wages but also the rich. However, should the ODS win the 2006 general election, the rich would pay lower taxes anyway because the ODS would then push through a 15 percent flat tax for all. It makes sense that the CSSD wants to make the passing of a flat tax as complicated as possible since it doesn't agree with it. It also makes sense that the ODS doesn't like this, because it wants to use the issue as one of its major pre-election hits. However, we could also say that both parties are not behaving according to principle: the CSSD if its proposal is nothing but a cheap pre-election gesture; the ODS if its obstruction is just a tactical maneuver to kill a motion that is otherwise in harmony with its philosophy of lower taxes. In reality, all this illustrates the poor state of Czech politics. Particular party interests prevent Czech politicians from reaching an agreement even in cases where measures are certainly beneficial to the entire population. Party offices are now counting points scored in dealing with the issue. Citizens should offer them a very different method of accountancy at the polls, Pehe writes.

Prime Minister Jirí Paroubek expected the health sector storm to calm down but wound up with a war at his hands instead: The president has refused to appoint his candidate, David Rath, and so the prime minister arranged for a different position for Rath at the Health Ministry in which he would be in charge of everything anyway, Jana Bendová writes in Mladá fronta Dnes Oct.21.

President Václav Klaus had a point when he turned down Rath as future health minister and regardless of what he thinks about Klaus, Rath should not ignore the objections of the head of state. Simply put, a person heading an apolitical professional association cannot simultaneously be a member of a highly political Cabinet. The fact that Rath offered to suspend his position in charge of the Czech Medical Chamber while serving as minister is but an attempt to sneak around the suspicion of a clash of interests. Such a suspended chamber presidency would be pretty much the same as a suspended pregnancy. The chamber president's chair would be vacated with a tag: "Don't sit down — reserved for Rath." But why is it such a problem in the first place? There are quite a few people sitting on two chairs in the Czech Republic. The catch is that membership in the Czech Medical Chamber is obligatory; nonmembers cannot work as doctors. Now they would all have to hold a seat in the chamber for a politician pushing through the CSSD program regardless of whether they agree with this program. And yet Rath's appointment could still be of benefit — to citizens, providing he truly gives up his position in the chamber, and to patients, if Rath would succeed in convincing the CSSD that reforms are necessary, Bendová writes.