Governing for the not so good?
By | Aug 25, 2008
Maxim Institute have put out a new discussion paper on taxation. It’s entitled Governing for the Good: What does it really mean?“
According to them, one of the things it might mean is lower taxation. No surprises there.
On their website they say:
”There have been vast increases in the spending of taxpayers’ money, with core Crown expenses expected to increase to $69.9 billion by 2012. Expensive new social spending programmes, such as KiwiSaver and Working for Families, have contributed heavily to this growth in spending, a burden that is not expected to ease any time soon.“
No surprises there, either. However, it’s curious use of language – ”vast increases“ and ”a burden“. Some might consider the burden light given the person it helps is my brother and my sister (he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother). And it’s hard to see how spending of tax payers money can vastly increase. The money is always spent, plus more if the government borrows (as National governments have a tendency to do). So there can logically be no ‘vast increase’ – it’s rather dishonest rhetoric.
However, it would seem that most interesting of all is a sentence which reads:
”New Zealand is one of the highest taxing countries in the developed world, with a tax ratio of approximately 36 percent.“
That’s one of those rather interesting, and entirely untrue ‘facts’. The OECD actually rate New Zealand in the middle. So I suppose, grammatically, one could say they are one of the lowest or one of the highest, depending upon the politics one was trying to spin at the time. In reality, they are neither. They’re in the middle third.
You can click on the link for a breakdown.
http://www.oecd.org/document/58/0,3343,en_2649_34533_39498298_1_1_1_1.html
Of course, perhaps of even more interest is the fact that the countries which top the GDP-tax ratio are Scandanavian – countries generally committed to major social programmes, providing good social outcomes. One might say that, according to the datasets and social outcomes, it’s these countries who are most consistently governing for the good of all the people?
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Comments
Roger
August 25th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Yes I noticed the same point when I read their report. With regard to at least some of the Scandanavian countries even from a purely economic perspective they have enjoyed sustained increases in living standards using GDP as a measure. Perhaps economic growth doesn’t have to be at the expense of social cohesion?
micah68
August 27th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I’ve only had time to read the executive summary so far but that is enough to raise serious concerns. This is classic neo-liberal propaganda. It is also terribly idealistic and I wonder if they can point to any society in the world where this hands-off approach to government has lead to genuine compassionate outcomes for the common good.
There is a fundamental flaw in the logic of right wing Christian politics which I think is evident here. RW politics in general believe that the market determines the best possible outcomes for the maximum number of people. Basically individual self-interest (a.k.a greed) is the driving force of the whole system. We are supposed to believe that individual self-interest will somehow ‘trickle up’ to form compassionate and caring communities. Now conservative theology is in agreement insomuch as it asserts that human-beings are by nature (or by the fall) basically self-interested, so it seems to make sense to build an economic system on this fundamental principle. But really how can self-interested fallen human beings work for the common good. It has to be by recognizing that self-interest is in fact an evil to be combated not an ally to be worked with.
Institutions based on attempts to harness this basic evil need to be challenged and kept in check.
We need to recognize the bias to sin within each of us and to draw on much deeper and higher principles of self-sacrifice and service in imaginative ways to ‘promote’ (not just protect) the common good.
Steve Thomas talks about the principle of subsidiarity and in so doing hallows local community and civic institutions over and above centralised forms of government. I see no reason to make a clear demarcation between these two forms of social organisation and institutions for delivering social outcomes. Good government will always be the government of the people for the people. By our involvement in the political process we give shape to the government and we demand of it that it promotes the common good. In this way the government is not different from the church board or the school board – it is accountable to the people and the people have the right and responsibility to hold the institutional expression of its common vision to account.
My deep concern however is that this neo-liberal rhetoric is a dangerous ideology that has a proven bad track record we tried it for 15 years from 1984 -1999 under the blitzkrieg reform of Rogernomics and the Ruthenasia of the Bolger/Shipley government.
We now have a government that is working hard to deliver good social outcomes for all kiwis and play a leadership role in the international scene. From my experience on community boards the government does not overly interfere with local expressions of caring and support, schools and social service providers are given a great deal of freedom and resource to provide the needs of their community in ways that are appropriate to them.
I had heard some indication that Maxim was softening its stance but it seems to me that their motto “toward a more just, free and compassionate New Zealand” has yet to be backed up by social policy that is more than just ideology.
http://www.faithfulleft.blogspot.com
foreign currency market
October 8th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
foreign currency market…
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