Tristan
Repeating false beliefs doesn't make them true.

"There is more than one way of ascertaining demand, and providing for that demand."

So perhaps you can show us by what rational criterion you ascertain whether government is providing
a) too much
b) too little, or
c) just the right amount
of anything it is providing, in terms of the satisfaction of the other human wants that had to be sacrificed in order to provide the resources for the governmental action, in units of a lowest common denominator?

I say that all you've got, and all any statist has got, is assertions of arbitrary opinion. Of course anyone can do that, and I could equally do it in reply. But I'm not doing what you're doing.

The challenge is not to just postulate any arbitrary amount of treasure to be spent on any arbitrarily-chosen service to any arbitrarily-chosen standard. The challenge is to make the connection, in whatever terms you want to define the ultimate human welfare criterion, with what human satisfactions had to be foregone, for the sake of governmental action.

You don't do that in your article, and you have never done it any of your articles or posts, ever. All you do is ASSUME that government is better, and knows better, and does better. At no stage do you justify this assumption in terms of reasons, economics, ethics, or any theory of the state. It's just a big magical fantasy-land in which you dream of a big teat to suck on indefinitely, and that's all it is. In reality, someone has to pay for it, so you are stuck with the question of social value whether you like it or not.

A simple admission that you haven't got and cannot provide any such rational criterion will suffice, but please, whatever you do, have the intellectual awareness to recognise a circular argument before you put it forward, and spare me having to humiliate you by pointing out the obvious.

Go ahead. Prove it or concede it.

Well here we go again; and Labor's victory can be trashed by a hostile Abbott lead coalition.

Should the GST be increased?
No!
It should be done away with along with state governments who need it, and who cost the taxpayer an additional 70 billions per year, just so we can have them around as a middle man profit taker.

And that forgone 70 billions would pay for enormous infrastructure outlays!
East cost rapid rail; an inland shipping canal, that allows most shipping to simply by pass the GBR altogether, thus saving time and fuel, and therefore, mucho plenty money!

Our super fund now approaches two trillion and needs something like self terminating thirty year bonds, to allow them to preferentially invest here and in income earning infrastructure!

We need genuine tax reform, to one, eliminate all the loopholes and the endless and costly duplication.

And here's the main point. If tiny Tassie can limit itself to just twenty five pollies, then so can all the other states.
I mean we only need ministers to head depts. All the rest are just expensive time wasters/window dressing or road blocks in the path of genuine progress!

Clearly, we need genuine tax reform to end the avoidance; (neg gearing/family trusts/ extremely expensive foreign service providers etc) and in so doing, relieve much of the load on too few taxpayers.

Why, if we all keep getting older or unemployed, JKJ may be the only one left paying any tax?
And you know he would just love that!?

My preference would be to throw out all the garbage and the inherent complexity, and replace all that with a single, stand alone, unavoidable expenditure tax.
Which could start at around 18-20%; and given the inherent savings, an adjusted real rate of just 11-13%, or put another way, the lowest real tax rate in the developed world!

As avoiders are welcomed back into the fold, reduced to just 5%?
Or 2% less than is presently being shelled out as currently unavoidable compliance costs!
It's the economy stupid!
Rhrosty.

Tristan,

It doesn’t go into a lot of detail but it does mention the importance of civics and citizenship in the curriculum:
‘become active, well-balanced, knowledgeable citizens, able to participate fully in a democratic society….

‘understand our democratic multicultural society, recognising what should be conserved, changed or improved …

‘understand and engage in our economy, our democracy and legal system…’

Wattle,

Yes, ‘Education spending has been consistently well above inflation for a number of years but many schools still have poor literacy and numeracy scores’, but if you think that proves the increase should not have happened, you are ignoring economic and population growth.

A study by Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan claims a total increase in real expenditure per student of 333 per cent between 1964 and 2003. If that increase really was unjustified, let’s reverse it. We can do so by cutting teacher salaries by 77 per cent (i.e., to around $19,900 for the top level in Victoria), by increasing the maximum class size by 333 per cent (i.e., to 108 students in a secondary school), by increasing teaching loads by 333 per cent (i.e., to 97 hours a week in a primary school) or by some diabolical combination of al three steps.

How many able people would become and remain teachers if the pay and conditions were as bad as the critics’ advice would make them?

Increases in expenditure have to be assessed against improvements in the overall living standards of the country and in the additional load that schools have taken on.

Quick shut the gate, the fairies are getting out again.

Tristan, have you actually noticed our huge, & growing deficit?

You would never concede of course, that deficit is from a couple of ratbag governments following your ideas of spending our kids future earnings on reoccurring welfare payments to the bludger class.

I can see your idea in education too. If you downgrade our hard education, math & physics, even further, the peasants will take longer to wake up to lefty incompetence, as they won't be able to add 2+2.

One really good thing about this election nationally, if Labor run true to form in Victoria, their economic incompetence will again be highlighted before the national election.

Jardine,
"The blandishments of Tristan's open-ended belief in the State only ever make sense if you disregard the fact that for every benefit the State provides, the resources are not created out of thin air. That is mere superstition. The resources to pay for any State action had to be withdrawn from some alternative employment which also went to satisfy human wants, human needs, human welfare, human wants in medical care, education, the environment, and so on."

What about the resources freed up by the productivity increase the infrastructure brings? Don't they count for anything?

If Abbott gets defeated at the party ballot there will have to be a federal election.