The Government claims that its cuts to payments for single mothers and disabled people are all about encouraging them into the workforce. This is purportedly a response to skills shortages as well as a “mutual obligation” initiative. It’s now been confirmed that when people in these situations are transferred to Newstart or Youth Allowance, they’ll lose eligibility for an additional payment which was designed to recognise the costs of University or TAFE study. What an absolute disgrace. Contrast this with the argument by Alex Robson in The Australian that tax cuts at the top end will provide an incentive for training and skills formation:
Because highly skilled workers tend to earn higher taxable incomes, high tax rates also reduce the incentive for individuals and employers to invest in education, training and skills formation in the long run.
Update: In other welfare news, eligibility for back payments for the carers of people with disability has been restricted. At least Kay Patterson’s honest enough to admit it’s about saving government money (presumably to fund tax cuts for people on 125k a year). Must have been impossible to spin that one in terms of aspirations, mutuality or skills.
Elsewhere: I haven’t seen any reports of Wayne Swan’s speech to the Press Club yesterday, but it’s worth reading for a critique of the budget measures and some alternative policy suggestions.
Hypocrisy? I didn’t realise Alex Robson spoke for the Government. My, has he moved up in the world!
Seriously though Alex’s argument is broader than that. It is about the deadweight losses of taxation which also include administrative costs, costs from evasion and furthermore as far as I’m aware Alex has not come out in favour of increasing effective marginal tax rates on welfare recipients. In fact I’d speculate that he probably would favour something like the Five Economists plan to introduce a negative income tax system of some sort for the working poor. So where is the hypocrisy? You are getting emotive, Mark.
Jason, I didn’t say that he spoke for the Government - my point is that the tax cuts at the top end are defended in terms of skills formation (and it’s a pretty thin argument I think) and this provides a contrast with the government’s hypocrisy on its justification for welfare cuts.
I don’t see anything wrong with being emotive about this issue - the fact that the Government can blithely hand out wads of money to those already advantaged while taking it from the most disadvantaged makes me angry.
Mark
If Alex isn’t speaking for the government then who is the hypocrite referred to in your post?
The Government, Jason. Peter Sutton, if you want to personalise it - follow the first link.
Mutual obligation always makes me think of that wonderful Crikey article from last year that I’ve put in the link box
As in when you click on my name…..
“I don‚Äôt see anything wrong with being emotive about this issue - the fact that the Government can blithely hand out wads of money to those already advantaged while taking it from the most disadvantaged makes me angry.”
Perhaps you might understand why some get angry at being overlooked again and again for tax relief when you read this
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15340171-31037,00.html
Perhaps you might like to take a stab at guessing why certain people earn high incomes and why some lazy bastards don’t?
And what about those lazy but well-connected/bred bastards who do? Why should they be rewarded?
The irony of course is that we are reinforcing not alleviating the existence of an underclass. All you aspirational high earners could save money in the long run on health, law enforcement and prisons if we even made a serious effort to sort out the social problems that are bubbling along beneath the notice of people in their 4wds and MacMansions.
Here’s something I don’t get. If our economy is so great, and our employment rate is so high, and we’re more prosperous than ever before as a nation, why the obsession with “lazy dole bludgers” or “shirking single mums” or “disabled diddling the system” (bad alliteration). Can’t we afford a bit of generosity and support for those less fortunate than us?
And, what Mark said.
If Alex Robson thinks that there is any relation between his rigorous academic training and the skills so acquired (sic) and the present Coalition Government then he needs another degree in human nature and a third in politics.
Firstly, declaration of self interest - I’m one of the people earning $125k. I’m also one of those working more than 49 hours/week.
Mark, if by “hand out wads of money” you mean tax cuts, then I say AGAIN they are NOT handing out wads of money, they are letting me keep a little more of what I have earned. No amount of saying it differently will change the reality - that is a simple fact. The government takes it because they can. And don’t waste my time with arguments about the superior morality of higher tax rates - morality & taxation/government spending ceased to have any relationship a long, long time ago. You don’t want to pay for a war in Iraq? I don’t want to pay for 100,000 abortions. So we pay the minimum the law allows, and keep every penny possible.
And all those essential services that some snoozer maintained (in a previous comment on a previous post) I’m just paying the government for, because someone has to provide them - let the private sector provide and I’ll choose if I want them. Then I pay for an efficient provison, don’t pay for stuff I don’t want or don’t get to use, and I don’t get to support umpteen public servants with the transactional costs described above by Jason. Let government get back to what they undertake to maintain under the constitution, and leave everything else to the private sector.
But if “hand out wads of money” means the ever expanding web of middle class welfare, then I’m with you 100% - junk it all and give the money back to the people who earned it, to spend as they see fit (and, sorry Kate, that includes your brother UNLESS he’s genuinely in need and gets picked up by a base “safety net” welfare system - my brother has a diability & my sister is a single mum - they’ve both made their life their own with some initial support from the taxpayer and lots of ongoing help from my family).
I’m a hardarse, and I know it’s not this simple - but I’m paying a shitload of tax AND I’m getting very little in return, so I’ve earned the right to sound off. Kerry Packer’s declaration that he’d be happier about paying tax if it was spent better still rings true.
Tony, what you’re ignoring is that you’re part of a community. It’s very clear that private provision is not an available option for most people in terms of health care, education or other services. In addition, presumably the private sector is not prepared to pay for the government provided infrastructure (transport, training, education) that facilitates its operations. If businesses stop externalising such costs, perhaps you’d have an argument. Capitalism only works because the public pays for the infrastructural (in the broad sense) needs without which private business could not function profitably. So what you need to think about, if you insist on treating taxation as an individual impost rather than as a contribution to a collective benefit, is the conditions of possibility for your own income earning power.
Perhaps you should get a proper job tony.
What? Getting very little in return? I assume you drive on a road, connect to the internet via Telstra’s infrastructure, etc etc etc. You earn over $100k, so spare me your sob story.
Kerry Packer pays two tenths of f*** all in tax. Most people bitch about it…if they were clever they would find out how he goes about doing it. I used to be all self-conscious about how much tax i paid but now i try to pay very little and am ecstatic about that.
The turning point was sitting in traffic in deepest brisbane for a couple of hours wondering how a city with 1.6 million people, the size of friggin New York with 3 lane roads and a one-way system could still be f***ed for traffic. When I got home I had been burgled and had to wait for two days (two days and seven hours actually) for police to show up because they had ‘traffic incidents to attend to’. When they did arrive they didn’t even bother getting anyone to take prints or even the most basic of investigating (lobby videotape dickheads). F*** that sh!t - I got a bloody good accountant.
Tony perhaps doesn’t realise that when things are privatised it costs more. With the added bummer being that as the cost increases more poor people can’t afford and they come and rob his house.
So, what’ll it be Tony?
Spend $40,000 on stuff that used to cost $20,000?
Or
Spend $20,000 and get taxed $20,000 and get $20,000 worth of stuff and no pissed off poor people wanting to steal your stuff?
Declaration of self interest - I’ll be one of the people looting Tony’s place.
The govt winds up the heat on the Beazer here
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=3414
Trust us, we’re from the government and we’re here to help
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=3414
Try second link here http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Tax-system-costs-61b-annually-reports/2005/05/18/1116361575042.html?oneclick=true