New Year, same old political promises
There will also be a lot of blather. As parties, alliances and individuals set out their respective stalls, they will appeal to the electorate using various political slogans and terms. Below, a few of these are given a shake, just to check whether they stand up to any real scrutiny.
This is now received wisdom and highly inaccurate. The banking debt foisted onto the shoulders of citizens is around €64 billion, with the possibility of recouping anything up to €20bn over time. The national debt is of the order of €200bn. So two thirds of the debt, which has been grappled through major cutbacks and tax increases, was accumulated through mismanagement of the exchequer finances.
The citizens got a raw deal with the banking debt. European institutions – and the American government – forced this country to pay back bondholders in order to keep a lid on the creaking international financial system.
The citizens of this country were treated appallingly and are entitled to some restitution. But even without the banking debt, there would have been a very deep recession. Less than €2.5bn of the €8bn annual interest bill goes to the banking debt.
The fantasy policies of cutting tax while pumping up spending were implemented by Fianna Fáil-led governments, but went largely unopposed by most other parties. This truth requires acknowledgment because without it, the promises that will be made in the coming year by politicians will not be properly examined.
Every promise needs to be parsed within an inch of its life, because it is in the nature of the Irish electorate to want to get fooled again. This must be avoided at all costs, or it will be back to the future for the country.
We hear much about “the Elite”, particularly from parties of the left. Who are the elite? Politically, the term originated in the USA and came from the American right. The elite Stateside is a term of abuse used in a cultural context. So a God fearin’ gun tottin’ millionaire pig farmer in Arkansas, who is an exploitative employer, is not a member of the elite, yet a college lecturer in New York with socially liberal views is.
In this country, the term appears to apply to economics solely, but who knows. Paul Murphy of the Anti Austerity Alliance, speaking in the Dáil on the water charge issue on December 3 referenced a version of the elite. “People have concluded that it (the Government) is incapable of listening to working class people and the 99%.”
So the elite is the top 1% of earners? And they have been insulated from the recession while the 99% have suffered. Is this analysis credible? Or is it convenient in political terms to isolate the top 1% as culprits and tell everybody else that you are on their side.
This analysis infers that high earners in say, the top 20- 30% of society, have felt the same pain as those who languish in consistent poverty. Next time you hear somebody reference the elite, ask for a little expansion on the term.
These boys and girls are the darlings of all politicians, but who the hell are they? Sinn Féin, currently the most popular political party, appears to put a ceiling of €100,000 on the “middle income earner”. One of the party’s central economic policies is to introduce a tax rate of 48% on those earning over that figure.
So in a household where the senior garda and teacher earn a combined €130,000, we have two “middle income” earners. They are in Sinn Féin’s thoughts and won’t be hit by the new rate. Yet the household where only one parent works outside the home and pulls in over €100,000 – say, an accountant – is surplus to the Shinners vote-getting strategy, and will be hit.
There is no fairness in such a strategy, but electoral politics isn’t about fairness. Somebody has to be hit, and if you go after all households with an income over €100,000 – as opposed to all individuals – it will cost votes.
The Government parties put a ceiling of €70,000 on the “middle income earner”. This is the figure that was used in the budget to claw back gains from lowering the marginal rate of tax by 1%. While more realistic than the Shinners figure, the same principle applies about income to households as opposed to individuals. In the case of Fine Gael, that party probably believes it has most high income earners in the bag anyway.
Fianna Fáil hasn’t explicitly stated where the “middle income” ceiling is located, but you can be damn sure it’s up there in the same general location as that of the other parties.
A more realistic assessment of the “middle income” earner comes from the Nevin Institute, thinktank. Using Revenue Commissioner data it set the ceiling of the middle as €50,000. According to the institute’s Micheal O’Connoll, 69% of tax cases are below this figure.
That would infer that any policies intending to benefit “lower and middle income” earners should focus on those earning below that amount.
Unfortunately, that won’t happen. The higher up the socio-economic ladder that a citizen resides, the more likely is that person to vote. If any of the parties were to put a realistic – or fair – ceiling on the “middle income” earner, it would cost votes. When they knock on your door, ask about the figures, and the two income households. And stand back as the spin machine cranks up.
Everybody is in favour of protecting the most vulnerable. The current government is all for it, even though when it came to the crunch it repeatedly hit the poorest, people with disabilities, education disadvantage, and other such sectors, rather than getting money from those better able to afford it.
The opposition is no less discerning. A noted example of how political parties interpret the protection of the most vulnerable occurred on Dublin City Council last September. Faced with a choice of lowering the property tax by the maximum amount of 15%, or lowering it by 7.5%, and allocating most of the difference to services for the homeless, 46 of the 58 present voted for the former. (Only the Labour and Green councillors voted against).
The vote benefited most the accursed elite, who live in the biggest houses.
Those are just a few of the terms that you will be bombarded with in the coming months. Don’t take them at face value.So Happy New Year. Take it handy.
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