All the talk of gloom-and-doom is total budget bakwaas
By Manbir Kohli
It looks like the Liberal government will go ahead with the deficit-levy/tax when the budget comes out on Tuesday. All the talk of the economy is in crisis and doom-and-gloom that they have been projecting is totally bakwaas. For instance look at the unemployment figures hovering at around 5.8%, lowest interest rates in history, a ”˜AAA’ economy. That the insulation and school building programs were not handled as well as they should have been is a different matter.
Another bhoot of budget deficit being screamed about is something that preys on simple minds. There is a comparison of the government deficit, which simply is aamdani (revenue) minus kharcha (spending) to a household budget which gets people emotionally charged. Governments are businesses and they are there to develop and take the country forward, supporting the old and vulnerable, so there will be a deficit. Look at your own domestic budget your aamdani is X dollars but your deficit after including the cost of the kothi you have made is about 4X of your income. Is this bad? No it helps build wealth and anyway our nation’s debt to GDP ratio is at a historic low.
Let’s come to the ”˜aamdani’ or revenue side of the budget. The Liberals are fond of blaming the ”˜previous governments’ for all the ills of the economy. Howard was lucky that the resources boom happened during his time and he was drinking lassi as Australia was raking in billions of dollars. With the world economies slowing down the resources boom has slowed down, mining companies are paying lower taxes and guess what? The aamdani has dropped. It has also dropped because we are saving more compared to earlier and scaring people with uncertainty adds to this. I know many people who are in good jobs but are afraid to spend money as this talk of reducing the public sector is scaring them and they are unable to concentrate on the next episode of Saas-bahu!
To increase this revenue the government needs to look at avenues that are ignored such as subsidies to mining companies, superannuation concessions to the top 5% earners and of course their inability to tax big companies due to their ”˜creative accounting’ practices. For instance Google Australia paid less than half a million dollar despite doubling its local profit to over $46 million. An article by Peter Martin in the Sydney Morning Herald says “”¦.they (mining companies) have been paying a much lower proportion of their operating profits as tax than the rest of the corporate sector, about 5 to 10 percentage points less according to Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson.”
Against this we will be slapped with a ”˜broken promise’ of no new taxes, with the debt tax for incomes over $ 150,000, a new Medicare fees, each time you see a doctor, from $2.50 to maybe $15, more funding for private schools than public ones, reductions in pensions, increasing the working age before pensions can be claimed to rise to 70 gradually, maybe privatisation of the Higher Education Loan Program (FEES-HELP) that may increase the interest rate and lowering of incomes at which it will need to be repaid.
The scare mongering is softening us up for the government to bring in ideological changes that wants to make us a hard hearted society hitting at the most vulnerable.
(bakwaas ”“ bullshit; bhoot ”“ ghost; aamdani ”“ revenue; kharcha ”“ spending; kothi ”“ home or house; lassi ”“ yoghurt drink; saas-bahu ”“ an Indian serial on mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws)
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