Where to start…
Let’s see, let’s begin with the idea that the Liberals are telling Labor that they should agree to pass all the savings measures that they said they would prior to the election or it’s a “clear broken promise”, while Malcolm is writing to Bill Shorten to suggest that he should abandon his commitment to a Royal Commission into the banks. It seems that even though Labor also took that one to the election, it’s ok to break that promise because… well, we want you to.
The idea of the Opposition breaking their election promise opens up a whole new concept in politics. I would have thought that, under the Liberals way of looking at things, if winning the election gives you the mandate to pursue all your policies, then losing should mean that you have no mandate to pursue any of them, but apparently losing the election doesn’t allow you to change policy any more. Which is strange because normally the Coalition is squealing that they won the election so Labor has no right to stick to any of its policies and should just let everything through the Senate without debate because they lost!
But Scott Morrison’s little speech today surely takes the cake. You know, that cake that even Marie Antoinette was prepared to let the peasants eat. Apparently, Scott thinks that Marie was far too generous and that some people don’t deserve cake because they don’t pay tax. Or rather, they get more in government benefits than they pay in tax.
And if it’s one thing that the Liberals have always been clear about it’s that people should always pay more in tax than they get back either in payments or services. They like always running surpluses whatever the economic circumstances and what’s a surplus but a government taking more in tax than it gives back in services and payments. Yes, the Liberals have always aimed to be a big taxing government, relative to their expenditure.
But remember, ScoMo has assured us that the government doesn’t have a revenue problem. Just an earnings problem.
What’s the difference?
Well, it’s quite simple. If we had a revenue problem we’d have to find additional revenue like new or increased taxes, but because we don’t want to do that, it’s an earnings problem. Which means that people and companies aren’t earning enough, because if they were they’d be paying more tax.
One way of helping companies earn more is the proposed company tax cut. Admittedly that’ll result in less tax for the government in the short term, but in the long term this will enable them to have a bigger deficit which will give them the excuse to cut health, education and welfare spending leading to savings for the Budget’s bottom line.
And, of course, the other problem that our Treasurer has worked out is that many people are receiving unemployment benefits and they expect to continue to do so, just because all our jobs are being done by 457 visa holders or sent overseas. But, of course, that’s because our workers are paid too much. If they were paid less…
Mmm. There’d be an even bigger revenue… sorry, earnings problem for the government.
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