“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.”- Everett Dirksen, maybe. US Senate Minority Leader. January 3, 1959 – September 7, 1969 How about two hundred and forty-three billion dollarydoos, Ev? Does that count as real money? Because you could pay cash up front for three or four failed French submarine projects with that sorta cheddar. It’s roughly how much the millionaire grifters of the Morrison government backhanded themselves and their donor class in the so-called Stage Three tax cuts. ‘Roughly’ because the actual cost is two forty-three
Desperately hoping that since the cuts don't show up for a while the growing pressure will give the ALP enough backbone to resist the conservative mouthbreathers at the Murdock press who will decry 'broken election promises' (why the ALP can't simply claim them as non-core I have no idea) and dump the cuts. But I have to agree these cuts are one of the most bone headed ideas ever. And why is it no matter how many times the graph and figures about are displayed the right wing conservatives on media get to say the ALP are the big taxing party and not be called on this BS.
Please don't read this as support for the stage-3 tax cuts: they're an awful idea produced by idiots for their craven mates, as you say. But I do have issues with the beat-up (it's not entirely you: I know that the Graun and others have been using a recent report with that figure in it).
Where does it get to be a good idea to extrapolate an annual tax effect out to ten years, just to get a bigger number? I used to get annoyed when people extrapolated to four years of the "forward estimates" to get their bigger number, but this is just more, because more is more. It's a 16B effect in the first year, and inflation takes care of the rest. There's no plan to stop after ten years. (Perhaps it won't even last that long: they could take a policy to change it to the next election and then change it without being vulnerable to the "Liar" slur that did in Gilliard.) Australia is a 1.3T/yr economy, or there-abouts. This is not an especially large chunk of it. Large, yes, stupid, yes, but not in a way that anyone will notice.
It's also not such that the super-wealthy will notice, much. The cut does not remove the top marginal tax rate, or even change the threshold by very much: that's still going to be 47% (counting the medicare levy, and why wouldn't you?) So this is a cut that starts at about $110k, which yes is above average, but is still in the realm of a very significant number of middle-class incomes. Those people vote too. To Gina and Twiggy, the fixed-dollar savings (a nine thousand dollar cut to their tax bill) will not be noticed.
And while I'm on a roll: read up about MMT regarding the "trillion dollar covid debt". Those are Australian dollars, that the Australian government is free to print. It's not owed to anyone but the RBA, and they're owned by the government. Of course inflation is the result, and taking money out of circulation is the expected response to that, and that will look a bit like "paying back the debt", but it isn't, and the end-point isn't zero, it's whatever the current working capacity of the economy is at the time.
If you want something to get really grumpy about, how about those vast (100+ M) self-managed super funds paying 15% on income and nothing on retirement outgoings. Or the foreign miners who have been paying zero dollars tax forever.
Happy now. Thanks for the opportunity to rant back!
I'll get my guillotine, someone bring a blade sharpener, JB you start rounding the bastards up...We'll show them two hundred and forty-billion fucking dollars!
I couldn't agree more. John Birmingham - you nail it! This tiny group of wastrels waiting for their quarter of a trillion dollars of tax breaks (and mostly they pay no tax anyway) from the largesse awarded them by the Morrison régime that AA says he wants to honour! Why on earth would AA want to honour such an LNP rort - giving a load of our national wealth to the largely LNP snouts-in-trough rorters - rather than invest it in - for example - unemployed jobseeker benefits - and free childcare for all - or other fairer distribution of the national wealth!
I feel the revolution is coming closer - having this morning just finished my reading of the updated 2017 Game of Mates by Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters - just released - titled: Rigged. There is no way I look at any of that gang of "mates" rife throughout all levels of our society it seems - greedy selfish takers - with anything better than disdain - onwards to disgust!
Simple explanation. ScoMo and co were looking for an issue, something, anything, to wedge Labor with. Tax cuts seemed like a good place to start. But how to get Labor to vote against them? Ahhh. Make 'em as regressive as possible. Fiscally reckless too, laughably so. And punt them out a few years. Labor either blocks them and gets wedged (cue Murdoch press outrage), or waves them through then repeals them (cue Murdoch press outrage) or waives them through then keeps them, resulting in huge budget deficits (cue Murdoch press outrage).
"three or four failed French submarine projects" that project was always going be scuttled it was amazing how the gov kept chasing sunk costs.... Great article mate.
Did you forget where the great unwashed sided when the ALP tried to introduce a mining super profits tax? All it took was Gina to haul her arse onto the back of a truck, Rupert to flail Rudd in his rags and someone to print some banners for the mob to wave and it's a wonder Rupert ans Gina never wound up being made into genuine sanctified saints. Australians are as dumb as dogshit.
After I emerged from my Pastis stage in the year 2008, I was astonished to realise that a million dollars, as a benchmark, was no more. Now everything is measured in billions, in a twelve-month period, more zeros appeared, out of nowhere.
I would have thought that the Mac Bank, known as the billionaire's factory, should be employed by Christophers' cohorts at the ATO, they know how the system works in the wood-panelled board rooms on the top floor. Their salary would make the Howard heroes swoon dead away, at such fiscal maleficence, but on the larger scale of things, the amount that could be wrenched from the cold fists of the Barvy Boorman types would far exceed the Maccas men, women are for decoration only and groping at the after work drinkies, renomination packages.
I had a dream the other night that the Billionaires formed their own political party, in a coalition with the Pentecostal Party and declared the Labor Party illegal, the GG agreed in a heartbeat.
I phoned my local member and suggested that we sell Tasmania to Blackstone, as a way to resolve the budget balloon, he gave me the Mirror Response, I'll look into it. Rupert would switch his Delaware account to Bernie before the close of trading if the price was right.
If we took up the idea of the Daily Telegraph and sacked the big Kahuna at the reserve Bank, and replace him with Chris Dore, we could get Lachlan on the board and create a publicly funded clone of the Republican party in OZ.
If you listen quietly, you can hear the ghost of John Curtin screaming in rage, that a man from an earlier life with a single mum in a housing Commission dwelling, could do such a thing as give billions to our oppressors.
Stage Three is only the precursor of Stage Four, which will be announced before the next election. I fail to see the fiscal logic of giving an amount of money that the proles can't even comprehend, only to receive a meagre amount of chump change as a donation.
If only the latest talkfest had agreed to a PAYE system of taxing the immoral followers of Ayn Rand, but such fantasies only come out of an opium pipe.
Thanks for your latest post John, it warms my heart more than Pastis.
Desperately hoping that since the cuts don't show up for a while the growing pressure will give the ALP enough backbone to resist the conservative mouthbreathers at the Murdock press who will decry 'broken election promises' (why the ALP can't simply claim them as non-core I have no idea) and dump the cuts. But I have to agree these cuts are one of the most bone headed ideas ever. And why is it no matter how many times the graph and figures about are displayed the right wing conservatives on media get to say the ALP are the big taxing party and not be called on this BS.
Please don't read this as support for the stage-3 tax cuts: they're an awful idea produced by idiots for their craven mates, as you say. But I do have issues with the beat-up (it's not entirely you: I know that the Graun and others have been using a recent report with that figure in it).
Where does it get to be a good idea to extrapolate an annual tax effect out to ten years, just to get a bigger number? I used to get annoyed when people extrapolated to four years of the "forward estimates" to get their bigger number, but this is just more, because more is more. It's a 16B effect in the first year, and inflation takes care of the rest. There's no plan to stop after ten years. (Perhaps it won't even last that long: they could take a policy to change it to the next election and then change it without being vulnerable to the "Liar" slur that did in Gilliard.) Australia is a 1.3T/yr economy, or there-abouts. This is not an especially large chunk of it. Large, yes, stupid, yes, but not in a way that anyone will notice.
It's also not such that the super-wealthy will notice, much. The cut does not remove the top marginal tax rate, or even change the threshold by very much: that's still going to be 47% (counting the medicare levy, and why wouldn't you?) So this is a cut that starts at about $110k, which yes is above average, but is still in the realm of a very significant number of middle-class incomes. Those people vote too. To Gina and Twiggy, the fixed-dollar savings (a nine thousand dollar cut to their tax bill) will not be noticed.
And while I'm on a roll: read up about MMT regarding the "trillion dollar covid debt". Those are Australian dollars, that the Australian government is free to print. It's not owed to anyone but the RBA, and they're owned by the government. Of course inflation is the result, and taking money out of circulation is the expected response to that, and that will look a bit like "paying back the debt", but it isn't, and the end-point isn't zero, it's whatever the current working capacity of the economy is at the time.
If you want something to get really grumpy about, how about those vast (100+ M) self-managed super funds paying 15% on income and nothing on retirement outgoings. Or the foreign miners who have been paying zero dollars tax forever.
Happy now. Thanks for the opportunity to rant back!
I'll get my guillotine, someone bring a blade sharpener, JB you start rounding the bastards up...We'll show them two hundred and forty-billion fucking dollars!
I couldn't agree more. John Birmingham - you nail it! This tiny group of wastrels waiting for their quarter of a trillion dollars of tax breaks (and mostly they pay no tax anyway) from the largesse awarded them by the Morrison régime that AA says he wants to honour! Why on earth would AA want to honour such an LNP rort - giving a load of our national wealth to the largely LNP snouts-in-trough rorters - rather than invest it in - for example - unemployed jobseeker benefits - and free childcare for all - or other fairer distribution of the national wealth!
I feel the revolution is coming closer - having this morning just finished my reading of the updated 2017 Game of Mates by Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters - just released - titled: Rigged. There is no way I look at any of that gang of "mates" rife throughout all levels of our society it seems - greedy selfish takers - with anything better than disdain - onwards to disgust!
It's going to hurt as much as Howards govt assets clearance sale. That was a can kicked down the road. And we're paying for it now.
Simple explanation. ScoMo and co were looking for an issue, something, anything, to wedge Labor with. Tax cuts seemed like a good place to start. But how to get Labor to vote against them? Ahhh. Make 'em as regressive as possible. Fiscally reckless too, laughably so. And punt them out a few years. Labor either blocks them and gets wedged (cue Murdoch press outrage), or waves them through then repeals them (cue Murdoch press outrage) or waives them through then keeps them, resulting in huge budget deficits (cue Murdoch press outrage).
"three or four failed French submarine projects" that project was always going be scuttled it was amazing how the gov kept chasing sunk costs.... Great article mate.
Ooh. Vivid.
Very happy chappy today, so I am probs bias saying OMG. Excellent. Give it to the man JB!
Did you forget where the great unwashed sided when the ALP tried to introduce a mining super profits tax? All it took was Gina to haul her arse onto the back of a truck, Rupert to flail Rudd in his rags and someone to print some banners for the mob to wave and it's a wonder Rupert ans Gina never wound up being made into genuine sanctified saints. Australians are as dumb as dogshit.
And if we'd got a mining superprofits tax during the last iron ore price boom we wouldn't be in this bad budgetary position
Stage 3 has to be repealed. Sticking by a stupid idea slung together by Chucklefucks’R’Us is hardly a good look or politically astute.
@Halwes Here's an experiment - buy a stall near Centrelink and ask people on Welfare questions like:
How do you think big mining companies would react to a Super Profits Tax?
How do you think a Super Profits Tax could be enforced?
What do you think or expect to be considered - when negotiating Super Profits Tax?
What do you think the implications/ramifications/ consequences may be of - making a Super Profits Tax?
It'll blow your mind if you really think the 'average Australian' is dumb and blind to this stuff.
After I emerged from my Pastis stage in the year 2008, I was astonished to realise that a million dollars, as a benchmark, was no more. Now everything is measured in billions, in a twelve-month period, more zeros appeared, out of nowhere.
I would have thought that the Mac Bank, known as the billionaire's factory, should be employed by Christophers' cohorts at the ATO, they know how the system works in the wood-panelled board rooms on the top floor. Their salary would make the Howard heroes swoon dead away, at such fiscal maleficence, but on the larger scale of things, the amount that could be wrenched from the cold fists of the Barvy Boorman types would far exceed the Maccas men, women are for decoration only and groping at the after work drinkies, renomination packages.
I had a dream the other night that the Billionaires formed their own political party, in a coalition with the Pentecostal Party and declared the Labor Party illegal, the GG agreed in a heartbeat.
I phoned my local member and suggested that we sell Tasmania to Blackstone, as a way to resolve the budget balloon, he gave me the Mirror Response, I'll look into it. Rupert would switch his Delaware account to Bernie before the close of trading if the price was right.
If we took up the idea of the Daily Telegraph and sacked the big Kahuna at the reserve Bank, and replace him with Chris Dore, we could get Lachlan on the board and create a publicly funded clone of the Republican party in OZ.
If you listen quietly, you can hear the ghost of John Curtin screaming in rage, that a man from an earlier life with a single mum in a housing Commission dwelling, could do such a thing as give billions to our oppressors.
Stage Three is only the precursor of Stage Four, which will be announced before the next election. I fail to see the fiscal logic of giving an amount of money that the proles can't even comprehend, only to receive a meagre amount of chump change as a donation.
If only the latest talkfest had agreed to a PAYE system of taxing the immoral followers of Ayn Rand, but such fantasies only come out of an opium pipe.
Thanks for your latest post John, it warms my heart more than Pastis.
Nailed it again thank you.