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February 22, 2011
In Policy fails to keep up with boom Michael Stutchbury, The Australian's economics editor, says that:
Tighter fiscal policy is needed both to make room for the mining investment boom and to build a reserve fund for when the commodity cycle turns down. Labor should be making the case for an explicit surplus reserve fund to bolster community support for painful decisions....The rhetoric should be pro-enterprise. Taxes on consumption need to increase to help finance sharper incentives to promote working and saving, bolstered by pro-work welfare reform. Tax breaks on saving need to be rationalised to reduce the bias towards housing speculation.
We are in the midst of a resource boom and Stutchbury wants to increase consumption taxes, liberalise the job market, and get people (the disabled?) off welfare.
Though he doesn't say that company tax should be reduced or that the resources tax on Big Mining should be eliminated, we get the message. Give companies a big break and slash into the welfare state. What we cannot have is a tax on profit, as that is an attack on success and prosperity that is fueled by the politics of envy and class warfare. And so on and so on.
And so on and so on--its always the same neo-liberal catechism from The Australian.
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Stutchbury does not learn, hes already been on the end of correction from Prof Quiggin, now Dr
Sauer Thompson is moved to elaborate. What codpieces the Oz editors are.