Martin, Ulster fry and the Tories

Well, who would have thought it? Martin McGuinness sitting with a bunch of Unionists eating an Ulster Fry at a fringe meeting of the British Conservative Party conference. OMG!

Okay, I’ll try and look beyond the obvious confusion at seeing a major republican figure sitting in the company he was at the venue he was, but what was he doing there?

Martin is Deputy First Minister of the six counties and he is in a coalition government with Unionists, okay we accept this fact. The British government is planning on imposing massive public expenditure cuts that if introduced will destroyed the lives of thousands of working class people. So the coalition partners in the Northern government head to the Conservative conference to argue the case for not introducing the cuts in the North. Okay I can accept that.

As Martin said at the assembly prior to his trip, “Let me be very clear, Sinn Féin will oppose the unfair and unjust proposed cuts by the British Government; our position remains that we must grow our economy, protect those most vulnerable in our society and ensure that we work to meet the requirements of those in most objective need.”

Also an excellent piece in An Phoblacht argues the case against the cuts and the need to move power over the Northern economy away from London and back to Ireland. http://aprnonline.com/?p=78042 This article concludes with this paragraph.

United resistance“As a party we are looking to build an alliance with the trade union movement and the community and voluntary sector to resist the cuts and to defend frontline services,” Mitchel said. “The public sector did not create the economic crisis – it was the private sector.
“We should not accept the inevitability of cuts. We should focus our minds on challenging them. All parties should agree a common approach in all of this.
“We need to enter into a negotiation with the British Government to resist cuts and secure proper control of the economic levers which will allow us to map a way out of the current recession and to protect the most vulnerable and those experiencing disadvantage at the same time.”
“We need to plan to grow the economy and all options must be on the table. This includes the development and harmonisation of the all-island economy. The existence of two currencies, two different tax and social welfare regimes, two health services, and so on, all restrict our ability to effectively tackle the effects of the recession.
“We need to end needless duplication and develop efficient systems that benefit everyone on this island.”


THE BIG BUT…

All of the above I have no problem with and indeed support. We entered into the GFA in order to build a better Ireland, with Ireland’s future being determined by Irish people. So, all of the above in my mind fits into this category.


BUT, what if the attempt to build a successful opposition to Tory/Lib cuts fails to stop the cuts? What then?

I believe we cannot allow our party to be a tool to implement massive cuts in services across the North. We cannot accept that we are powerless to resist the inevitability of these cuts and therefore our job is to make them as palatable and painless as possible.

If we were to allow this to happen we would be heading for disaster North and South of the border.

At present in the South we are attacking the major party consensus on the need for cuts. We are organizing a mass march in Dublin on 4th December against these cuts and we are right to do this. However, whether we like it or not we are judged by most people as a largely Northern party, and if people want to vote for us they will look to our record in the North as proof or what we really are all about. If Martin’s Ulster fry up fails to stop the cuts then the party must fight them in every way possible and refuse to implement them.

If this does not happen then people across the 32 counties will make their own judgments on Martin’s trip to the Tory Conference, and they will make up there own mind as to who and what we are all about.

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE - AND THEY KNOW IT!

This article was taken from Mary Lou McDonald's Blog. A blog which is always well worth a read.

http://maryloumcdonald.blogspot.com/

There is an alternative to this rotten government

Each year Sinn Féin presents to government the party’s pre-Budget submission. As Ireland’s fortunes have changed significantly over the last two years December’s budget has become an important day of the year, particularly for the least well off in our society as they face cuts in critical supports and services and the double whammy of an increase in inequitable stealth taxes.

Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats’ right wing agenda coupled with their fiscal recklessness during Ireland’s boom years hardened the collapse of our economy. The Green’s have compounded the states public finance deficit and double-digit unemployment figures by signing off on Fianna Fáil’s golden circle policy approach. Or maybe they have just found their political home in a Fianna Fáil led government!

Fianna Fáil was so beholden to those within it golden circle it decided to nationalise the worst bank in the history of the state. Anglo Irish Bank has cost the Irish people 22 billion euro to date with rating agency Standard Poor’s recently estimating that the total cost of bailing out the bank will rise to 35 billion euro.

But it is not enough for those of us in political opposition to bemoan the horrific failings of this government; we need to present our political and fiscal alternatives to the people. And that is what we in Sinn Fein have done each year with a particular focus on job creation since the collapse of the economy in 2008. We are currently working on our Budget 2011 submission, which will be published and submitted to government in advance of budget day on December 7th.

Click on the below links to download Sinn Féin Job Creation strategy document and our 2010 Budget submission to government. In these document’s you will find sensible viable alternatives to the government’s budget decisions including a range of tax revenue measures and proposals to address wasteful spending of public monies.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bwa0F8Eb46geNzE3MmQzZjQtYTIyZi00OWU1LTkwZjctYTMwMzJhMzk3YmJh&hl=en

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bwa0F8Eb46geODE1MzViNGQtNDExZi00ZjdkLWI2OGQtODg2ODdhNzYzZGZk&hl=en

The Greens - First yellow and now blue.

Some fairly despicable comments were passed in leinster house recently. But enough about the budget. At least we had the Greens -an Comhaontas Glas, the supposedly ethical heart, if any remains, of this govt.

Well I am not so sure about ethical considering their masterful performance over the last year. Seems like these days the Greeens are following the PDs into the same nasty, unethical politics.

Deputy Gogarty, with his nice big salary feels your pain and knows what its like. As the man explained:

"It is hard for me to gratuitously insult many of my constituents who are public sector employees and tell them: “Listen, lads. It is necessary. I feel your pain but it is necessary”.
...

"It would be highly disingenuous of me and totally insincere, therefore, to say anything other than that this is a grossly unfair section and that the Bill is grossly unfair."
...
"I am not proud of what has happened, I am not proud of the fact the banks had to be bailed out, of the corruption and worship of mammon in this country that has brought us to this sorry state, I am not proud of that, colleagues"

And then after some more raiméis we had that moment:



Deputy Gogarty, I look forward to the day when your constituents tell you in the most unparliamentary language to Fu*K off, with all due respect, Fu#k off.

So the Budget is out.

Some points that struck me as a first impression was the number of things done for optics. Smoke and mirror policies. The most annoying being Cowens pay cut. How will he surive on over 200k. Tough times indeed.


Excise duty on alcohol reduced - 12 cent cut on beer and cider, 14 cent cut on a measure of spirits, 60 cent cut on a bottle of wine (no change in tobacco)

Will these cuts increase consumption and therefore revenue or is it just another distraction by feeding into the "we are competing with Newry and Bangalore" myth. I suspect the latter but hey who knows maybe this is not a pointless optic. 12 cents off that scrumpy jack might be enough to tempt people to ignore Mary Harney's advice to shop around for the best value. Maybe we can drink our way out of this. Who'll play their part this Christmas? That socialist rag the Sunday Business Post was wondering last year why the Govt. was failing to force retailers south of the border to reflect currency movements in their prices! As they note the south is indeed a more costly place to do business but could that account for differences of up to 50% in some items. Still a year later its apparently better to ignore that type of thing and instead of protecting southern consumers its apparently better to lobby and just mess around with cider prices rather than face up to Rip Off Ireland.

Scrappage scheme announced - VRT relief of up to €1,500 on a new low-emission car, for trade-ins at least 10 years old.

This falls under stimulus apparently. The SBPost were fairly enthused about this over the last few weeks. Apparently is a big boost. Maybe it is! Cheap drink and a new car to prosperity. Gas how shopping in Newry is anti-patriotic( as the economic isolationists argue) but encouraging the purchase of a luxury item produced off the island is not. Is there a better way to have money circulate in the economy for a few more times before it leaks out or is a new car the best way to go? Or is this car scrappage just a malarky to make it look like the govt is trying to kick start the economy and get some spending going. But will the lure of €1500 for your banger traded in for new cars under certain conditions be enough to tempt you to buy a car. As Brian Linehan said

"The scheme will have the environmental benefit of removing some older, potentially less safe and polluting vehicles from the road".

Potentially less safe? Thought the NCT had those things off the road.

But this is a govt. with a green streak in the middle. What input them? Well car wise continued incentives to switch to a hybrid car. I am really curious to see how this works out.

As Brian L said ...

To that end, the VRT exemption for electric vehicles and the VRT reliefs of up to €2,500 for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are being extended by two years until 31 December 2012

. I would like to see the latest figures but back in 2007 friends of the irish environment said the scheme cost about 8 million for 9 months of the year 2007. But at the time a certian Ciaran Cuffe said:

The rebate was supposed to encourage sales of cars generating less emissions and pollutants than normal models such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic hybrid," he said. "But now it's clearly subsidising sales of expensive, luxury cars that contain green technology, but don't apply it in the same way. No one driving a Lexus hybrid can argue they are helping to save the planet.

Maybe they got that problem solved and its now acceptable to the Greens or maybe the Greens accept anything and everything these days. Is this another gimmick. At 8 million roughly a year then yeah it probably is substanceless. Cuffe used think so anyhow.

Ombudsman to be appointed to review the cases of small businesses who are refused bank loans

If I was a small business man with 10 people struggling to keep afloat the opportunity of entering a bureaucratic paper run between the banks and an ombudsman would not fill me with confidence. Still when it goes belly up and the creditors are ripping apart your tiny business and people have lost their jobs you can keep busy tracking your new national bond.

There are many other items in the budget that are damaging and they will be well covered in the media and on the SF budget analysis site and other progressive media sources.

But these paltry baubles I listed above may end up being touted as the govts stimulus package. For me personally thats hard to credit and I see more an exercise in spin and managing the political narrative than actually contributing anything serious.

I'm Fxcking angry and pissed off!

As a public sector worker in the South I am totally pissed off with the manner in which my union has behaved in relation to the pre budget negotiations.

My union held a national ballot, organised meetings and sent out literature about the position of the union leadership in relation to the planned government cuts to public sector pay. In all of the above the argument was put forward that such cuts were not fair and must be rejected in favour of a fairer tax system whereby the wealthier members of the country would pay more, because they could afford it!

I stood with many others holding official union placards that said no to pay cuts and yes to fairer taxation. It was on this basis that people voted to strike and walked out in their hundreds of thousands. To us the argument was sound and we were taking a principled stand.

BUT THEN

Yet what happened? Our leaders then go into negotiations and put forward a proposal whereby public sector workers would have to take 12 days compulsory leave without pay! This is a pay cut and anybody with a brain can see that.

By taking this step the union leaders had moved away from the agreed principled position already mentioned and accepted that the public sector pay bill needed to be reduced. At one stroke they had undermined their/our position. This was madness!!!

As soon as I heard this was happening I said this will not be agreed and the government will hum ha and then walk away. Which is exactly what they did. SURPRISE!!

The reason they can safely walk away is that they can now simply turn around and say ,"Look you accepted the need for the pay bill to be reduced, but unfortunately your way will not work. So all that is left is pay cuts. Sorry."

And in response what can the union bosses say, "Umm umm No that's not right. We have tried to be reasonable. We don't really believe cutting pay is important anymore."

To which the media will go, "Ha ha ha. Now we have you. Now we have ya."

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

When I try to understand what has happened to my union since the crisis began, I am left confused.

Firstly we had the behaviour around the pay cuts via the increased pension payments.

When this step was announced by the government the unions took weeks to organise a response. They got over 100,000 people on the streets opposing these cuts eventually got around to organising a ballot for strike action. But what happened? Nothing. One union did not have a big enough majority for strike action and that was it.

In my opinion this was NOT the result of poor leadership on the part of the unions. Rather the union leadership actually accepted the logic of the cuts and that wait. game over.

Secondly we have the farce around the cuts coming up in the budget. For me there is only one explanation for what happened and that is the leadership never believed what they were originally telling their members. they never actually believed in fairer taxation and making the rich pay and one of the reasons for that is possibly the high pay of many of those union leaders. For some info check here http://www.businessandleadership.com/news/article/16895/leadership/paper-publishes-salary-levels-of-trade-union-leaders

SO NOW WHAT?

So now what. Well the only thing for people to do is get active in their union. Every branch member should demand to know why the leadership are behaving as they are. If they believe in the cuts agenda, well be honest about it and convince us. If they don't support the cuts agenda then why are they just rolling over every time the government makes another attack on working people. And if we don't like their answers then we should kick them out of office and put in people who will fight for working people.

Tax Breaks and the Budget

Tax breaks and the budget.


Break a leg is the customary term of encouragement given to actors. As Brian Linehan senior counsel gets ready to deliver his third budget in 15 months we'll all be hoping this master actor gets it right this time

What he comes out with is hard anyone's guess but its likely to be a lot of old hat with maybe, just maybe, one or two good ideas in the middle. If he is looking for advice he should take a look at the Sinn Fein pre-budget proposal http://www.sinnfein.ie/files/Pre-Budget2010_small.pdf
One of the areas that documents recommends focus on is tax breaks as part of the party's argument for a functioning tax system.




Some of the proposals were:


- Abolish mortgage interest relief for landlords – Raises €285 million


- Abolish all remaining property-based tax reliefs (on property development, not principal home mortgage interest relief) - Raises €43 million


The pre-budget submission argued that standardising all discretionary tax reliefs could raise €1.1 billion.





TASC, the economic think tank arguing for a more nuanced approach to the Irish economy have now added some futher details to this discussion with a new report on tax breaks /or tax expenditures as they are officially called. http://www.tascnet.ie/upload/file/TASC%20Pre%20Budget%20Statement%20on%20Tax%20Breaks%20FINAL.pdf





TASC says that tax breaks will cost the southern state about €7.4 billion in 2009. The level of tax breaks in Ireland is exceptionally high. They amounted to € 10.7 billion in 2005 (which are the latest complete figures for the cost of tax breaks in a single year). The OECD Economic Surveys: Ireland reports that tax expenditure on personal income tax in 2005 amounted to €7.2 billion, plus an additional €3.5 billion in tax breaks on corporation tax. This totals €10.7 billion in tax breaks on personal income tax and corporation tax alone (OECD 2009a, pp. 60-62; OECD 2009b).



Big money indeed. But tax breaks are not necessarily bad its just when you use them unwisely they can cause the wrong type of outcome. Like increased inequality of wealth distribution or else stoking the fires of a property boom.But of course they also help people with breaks existing for disabled people or as aids to help businesses and keep people in jobs etc. The southern state is out of kilter with the rest of Europe. If tax breaks on personal income tax and corporation tax were reduced to EU average levels, they would only cost €2.2 billion in 2009, a drop of €5.2 billion. On Progressive-Economy http://www.progressive-economy.ie/2009/12/tax-breaks.html Nat o'Connor notes tax expenditure on personal income tax in Ireland cost three times as much as the average of 22 other EU countries.



TASC has argued that The Government is effectively spending money every time it decides to create or extend a tax break. All these tax breaks should be included in every annual Budget and the govt. would have to justify on an annual basis whether to keep or to scrap or add new tax breaks. Every single break would have a "sunset clause" and their evaluation as a success or not should not include any investments or jobs created that would happen anyhow as noted by the Irish times.




There are a couple of stumbling blocks for Brian taking these ideas up. Specifically the need to justify tax breaks each year, and they need to analyse their specific benefits over and above any investment or jobs that would be created anyhow. These points would require accountability, honesty and the implementation of basic controls. Basic controls that you would have in any business not to mind a state.



But the pre-budget proposal is right not to call for a huge clamp down on tax breaks. Too drastic an action would impact on low and middle earners who cant afford it and would probably harm small businesses trying to keep running and keep people in jobs.


But there seems to be plenty of room to tighten up the system and to help improve govt. revenue.


When it comes to reforming the tax breaks system and demanding accountability on why they exist and a demonstration that they are part of an appropriate economic strategy for the state then There Is No Alternative (TINA).



The Tasc report is http://www.tascnet.ie/upload/file/TASC%20Pre%20Budget%20Statement%20on%20Tax%20Breaks%20FINAL.pdf here and the Progressive-economy.ie site is discussing it at http://www.progressive-economy.ie/2009/12/tax-breaks.html