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Sharing the boom : Comments
By Andrew Leigh, published 2/7/2008Should the Rudd Government take a leaf from the Tony Blair playbook and consider a windfall profits tax on Australian mining companies?
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There's plenty of money swilling about the public trough.
Areas where money should stop going...
1. middle-class welfare
2. business welfare (no depreciation, R&D breaks, subsidies or bailouts... likes of Toyota and Bear Sterns can sink or swim on the seas of free-enterprise
3. employee largesse... from pinching stationary for the kids, to extended leave 'entitlements' for personal lifestyle priorities, thru to the highest paid employees (executive management) who pilfer exhorbitant salaries/bonuses for sub-standard performance.
4. arts, entertainment, pretty public squares for more latte sippers, monuments that local council builds as testament to themselves, no more soft cash to crappy indy bands to pump out 10minute demos on their PCs or go 'on tour' through regional areas, at $5-$20k a pop. These individuals, who justify suckling at the public nipple because they 'enhance public good' by contributing scrunched-up-ball-of-paper-on-pedestal or cow-cut-in-half or photos of semen and vessels full of urine, can fund themselves. Maybe go and grovel at the feet of private benefactors like way back when. The public dont get an equitable interest in their art if/when it starts selling at $50k a pop.
5. the littany of systemic and expansive waste thats built into the budgeting process across all levels, delberately running out of money before yr end, to justify bigger budgets. Using waste to justify more waste.
6. No special treatment for politicians, especially retired ones. No early super payouts, no private jets and no lifetime pensions for idiot prime ministers who made a mess during their tenures. Get a job.
These would be a fair start. Would free up enormous funding for the stuff that really matters... health, infrastructure, and education, in that order.
Its nice to feel nice, but its better to feel warm with a roof over yer head and well resourced hospitals and schools.