In what must be a truly galling plot twist for the left, their most hated Goldstein is being held up as a model for the world.
No, not the hard border, turn-back policy that Europe has been urged to follow (and which would serve the US equally well), but a taxation measure that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott introduced, to howls of fury from a left which finally found a tax they didn’t like.
The plot-twist on the plot-twist, though, is that the tax is being promoted to governments in order to fix what they wantonly broke.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged nations to consider using the Abbott government’s temporary budget repair levy to overcome the huge deficits left by the coronavirus recession, warning deep cuts to spending could lead to political instability.
Amid predictions the budget deficit facing the Morrison government could be up to $50 billion less than feared, the IMF has also suggested taxes on “excess” profits such as the abandoned mining resource rent tax.
The latter is a tax measure that Australians emphatically rejected. It’s a case of what I call a “Puffy-Pants Tax”, in reference to The Simpsons’ greedy Mayor Quimby making up spurious taxes on anything he can think of.
All in all, it smells suspiciously like yet another case of a globalist institution trying to capitalise on the self-inflicted wounds of the pandemic panic.
Governments around the world have all been forced to run huge deficits to deal with last year’s COVID-19 outbreak, with collective deficits approaching 13 per cent of global GDP. Australia’s deficit, forecast to reach $197.9 billion this financial year, is close to 10 per cent of national GDP.
The IMF, in its fiscal monitor report ahead of this week’s world economic outlook, said while governments had been forced to run large deficits, there had also been an increase in income and wealth inequality because of the coronavirus outbreak.
It said governments faced difficult decisions on how to cover their large deficits while also not exacerbating inequality.
Among budget repair options, the IMF said those nations with “robust tax systems” could look to increase top personal income tax rates, similar to the budget repair levy put in place by the Abbott government in 2014.
The Age
The irony, not to say rampant hypocrisy, is abundant.
The Abbott Budget Repair Levy was part of the 2014 budget which sent the left-media screaming to their keyboards to denounce the Abbott government, in large part manufacturing the febrile atmosphere which brought the government down.
But the Abbott levy was legislated with a clear sunset clause: the tax would expire after three years.
Who wants to bet that, once they’ve got it in place, the globalists will find a way to make the tax permanent? Look hard enough and through the right red-tinted glasses and you’ll always find an “inequality” that “must be remedied”.
But the Abbott levy was also introduced to deal with a budget blow-out caused by another panicked government overreaction. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was never going to hit Australia like it did the US or Britain, largely because our banks were not anywhere near as exposed to toxic debt. That didn’t stop the Rudd government from panicking and embarking on massive cash splurges. Not just direct stimulus payments but massive Keynesian green-left social engineering projects like “Building the Education Revolution”, the deadly home insulation scheme, and the white elephant that keeps on giving, the National Broadband Network.
All of this Keynesian delirium rapidly took Australia from surplus to spiralling debt.
The parallels with the pandemic are obvious. Like the GFC, the Wuhan Plague was never going to hit Australia as hard as the US or UK; the policies rushed by panicked governments are ruinously expensive for little clear return.
Now, the long-suffering taxpayer is being asked to pay to fix what reckless governments and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats broke.
The vindication of Tony Abbott is satisfying, for sure, but is the price really worth it?
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